BBC offices in New Delhi are raided by Indian tax officials who “seize all phones” weeks after the release of the documentary on Prime Minister Modi.

The Indian Financial Services today raided the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, weeks after the station aired a documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions during deadly sectarian unrest in 2002.

The opposition Congress party condemned the raids, adding there was an “undeclared emergency” in the country – as human rights activists say press freedom in India has suffered under Modi.

A spokesman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused the BBC of “anti-Indian propaganda” and said the raids were legal and the timing had nothing to do with the government.

“India is a country that gives every organization a chance,” Gaurav Bhatia told reporters, “as long as you don’t spew venom.”

Police cordoned off the BBC’s New Delhi office, which occupies two floors of a building on a leafy avenue in the capital’s business district.

A police car is parked at the gate of a building that houses the BBC’s Mumbai office

Security forces close the gate of a building that houses the BBC’s office in New Delhi today

Half a dozen officers were stationed outside to prevent people from getting in or out and a BBC worker in New Delhi said officers confiscated all phones during the raid.

A local official declined to identify his department, but said: “Government proceedings take place within the office.”

Another BBC official in Mumbai confirmed that the broadcaster’s office in India’s commercial hub was also raided.

India’s income tax authority could not be reached for comment by AFP, but BJP’s Mr Bhatia said: “If you have followed the law of the land and have nothing to hide, why fear a legal suit ? the law?’

Last month, the BBC aired a two-part documentary claiming that Hindu nationalist Modi told the police to turn a blind eye to sectarian unrest in the state of Gujarat, where he was prime minister at the time.

At least 1,000 people died in the violence, most of them Muslims.

A police officer (front left) stands at the entrance to the office building where the Indian Revenue Agency raided the BBC’s New Delhi office on February 14

A police officer and private security guard ask journalists to exit the gate of a building that houses the BBC’s offices in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday.

The Indian government blocked videos and tweets sharing links to the documentary – which was not broadcast in India – using emergency powers under its information technology laws.

Government adviser Kanchan Gupta called the documentary “enemy propaganda and anti-India nonsense”.

University student groups later held screenings of the film despite campus bans and defying government efforts to halt its distribution.

Police arrested two dozen students at the prestigious Delhi University after they disrupted a demonstration there in late January.

“First came the BBC documentary, which was banned,” the Congress party said on Twitter. “Now IT has searched the BBC,” she continued, referring to the Income Tax Office. “Unexplained emergency.”

India has fallen ten places to 150 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index since Modi took power in 2014.

Critical reporters, especially women, say they are victims of relentless online abuse campaigns.

Media and people stand outside a building housing BBC offices as income tax officials conduct a search on February 14 in New Delhi, India

Media companies, international rights groups and overseas charities are also subject to scrutiny by India’s tax authority and financial crime investigators.

The charity run by the late Catholic nun Mother Teresa temporarily ran out of money last year after the Home Office refused to renew its license to receive foreign donations.

Amnesty International said it ceased operations in India after the government froze its bank accounts in 2020 following raids on its offices.

In 2021, India’s tax authorities cracked down on a prominent newspaper and TV station that criticized the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic, leading to allegations of harassment.

The 2002 Gujarat riots began after 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire. Thirty-one Muslims were convicted of criminal conspiracy and murder over this incident.

The BBC documentary cited an earlier secret report from the British Foreign Office, which cited unnamed sources, as saying that Modi met with senior police officers and ordered them “not to intervene” in the ensuing anti-Muslim violence by right-wing Hindu groups.

The violence was politically motivated and the goal was to “drive Muslims out of Hindu areas,” according to the State Department report.

The “systematic campaign of violence has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing” and “would not be possible without the climate of impunity created by the state government…Narendra Modi is directly responsible,” she concluded.

Modi, who led Gujarat from 2001 until his election as prime minister in 2014, was briefly banned by the United States over the violence.

A special investigation team set up by India’s Supreme Court to investigate the role of Modi and others in the violence said in 2012 that it had found no evidence to charge him.