New Delhi, September 13, 2021 (PPI-OT): The Editors Guild of India has denounced the Income Tax department action against two independent news portals terming it as a dangerous trend of government agencies to harass and independent media in the country.

According to Kashmir Media Service, on September 10, teams of IT officials of Tax department visited the offices of NewsClick and Newslaundry and conducted investigations throughout the day, the body noted. The Guild said it is deeply disturbed about the ‘surveys’ at the offices of the two news websites.

Terming the Income Tax raids at the offices of the NewsClick and Newslaundry websites as the “dangerous trend of government agencies harassing and intimidating” independent media asked for an immediate halt of the practice.

In a statement, the editors’ body said it is deeply concerned that such indiscriminate seizure of journalists’ data, which could include sensitive information such as details of sources, stories under works and other journalistic data, is in violation of free speech and freedom of press”.

While they were officially labeled as surveys by the IT officials, according to the statement issued by Abhinandan Sekhri, co-founder of Newslaundry, this was a clear intermediately and latent attack on their rights and therefore press freedom, the EGI said. The raids were conducted in the backdrop of some very critical coverage by both the news organisations on the government’s handling of the pandemic.

For more information, contact:

Kashmir Media Service

Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549

Fax: +92-51-4861736

Email: info@kmsnews.org

Website: www.kmsnews.org