As ED raids continue beyond 24 hours, PCI, Editors Guild express 'deep concern'

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid at the offices of online portal NewsClick in Delhi continued on Wednesday. The raid, which was taking place across seven offices under the same organisation, in connection with an alleged money laundering case, started at around 8:30 am on Tuesday.

Raids were also conducted at the residence of the website's Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha. "Since the morning of February 9, ED officials have been searching through NewsClick's office and at homes of senior persons in order to find evidence for what are alleged to be financial irregularities, as reported by media," the statement, titled Govt Raids on NewsClick: Our Voice Can't be Muzzled, read. "The raids are still ongoing at the time of writing, some 30 hours after they started."

"It has become a routine practice with the present government to deploy government-controlled agencies to deal with all those who disagree with and criticise the government," the news website said. "In the past, the income tax department, the ED, various central investigative agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation and National Investigation Agency, have been selectively used in this manner against a range of people — from journalists to political leaders, to even farmers' leaders," the statement added.

The Editors Guild of India also expressed "deep concern" about the raids at the NewsClick office and at the residences of its senior journalists. "In the recent past the website has been at the frontline of reporting on the farmers agitation, the anti-CAA protests, and has been critical of various government policies and of a few powerful corporates houses," the statement said.

The Press Club of India said the raids an "unsavoury attack on the media in a bid to intimidate and silence critical journalism". "Publicising the charge of alleged money laundering against a small, public-spirited, news company is no way to defend democratic values and institutions, which the government proclaims to be doing, especially on the world stage," the media body said.

It also mentioned the attacks on prominent journalists and on not so well-known ones, and said it has "regrettably become the hallmark of the government". "In the past one year, numerous FIRs have been registered against journalists on the plainly specious and false charge of sedition and incitement of communal disharmony," the statement read. "The PCI has seen it as a duty to record its protest in all such matters."