Income Tax department conducts ‘survey’ at BBC offices in Delhi, Mumbai

The Union government on January 20 issued directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts with links to a BBC documentary based on the 2002 Gujarat riots

Teams from the Income Tax department were at the BBC office in New Delhi on Tuesday in what officials from the department described as a “survey”.

An official said they were investigating “certain matters related to BBC based on definite inputs of some irregularities”. (File)

The visit from tax officials comes less than a month after the BBC released a two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, which looked at the 2002 Gujarat riots, and was dismissed as the Indian government as “propaganda”.

A Central Board of Direct Taxes official confirmed to HT that officials were at the BBC office in New Delhi. “It is a survey and not a raid,” he said.

A second official said that the department was investigating “certain matters related to BBC based on definite inputs of some irregularities”. “Surveys are conducted to ascertain these irregularities. Only after completion of survey, it would be ascertained whether there are any deliberate irregularities or not,” the second official said, asking not to be named.

Officials reached the office a little before noon on Tuesday, with assistance of the seventh battalion of the Delhi Police. To be sure, the officials did not draw any link between the documentary and the survey.

In Mumbai, the IT “survey” started at 11.30am at the BBC studios in the Bandra Kurla Complex. BBC’s main office is in Bandra (West).

In January, when the documentary on the Gujarat riots was released, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) questioned its motives, and said it lacked objectivity. “It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it. This is a propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, the lack of objectivity, and a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at the time.

Defending its documentary, BBC said: “The documentary series examines the tensions between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority and explores the politics of Mr Modi in relation to those tensions.”