New Delhi | The Delhi Police has alleged that a large sum of funds came from China to disrupt India's sovereignty and cause disaffection against the country as part of a "larger criminal conspiracy", according to an FIR filed under anti-terror law UAPA following allegations against the NewsClick portal.
It said the foreign fund was fraudulently infused by Neville Roy Singham, an active member of Communist Party of China. The Delhi Police served a copy of the FIR to the portal on Friday, a day after a city court directed it to do so.
"Chinese telecom giants like Xiaomi, Vivo etc, incorporated thousands of shell companies in India in violation of the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act), for illegally infusing foreign funds in India in furtherance of this conspiracy," the police has alleged in the FIR.
It alleges that a person named Gautam Bhatia (key person) conspired to create a legal community network in India to put up a spirited defense in legal cases against these Chinese telecom companies in return for benefits by these firms.
However, police have not mentioned further details about Bhatia.
In a statement on Monday, NewsClick criticised the government action after the Delhi Police's Special Cell raids at premises related to it and its journalists. "We strongly condemn these actions of a government that refuses to respect journalistic independence and treats criticism as sedition or 'anti-national' propaganda." The police FIR alleged that Gautam Navlakha, a shareholder in PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd since its inception in the year 2018, remained involved in anti-Indian and unlawful activities such as actively supporting banned Naxal organisations and having anti-national nexus with Gulam Nabi Fai, an ISI agent.
On August 17 this year, police registered an FIR under Sections 13 (punishment for unlawful activity), 16 (punishment for making demands of radioactive substances, nuclear devices, etc), 17 (punishment for funding terrorist act ), 18 (punishment for conspiracy) and 22C (punishment for offences by companies, societies or trusts)of UAPA and sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc), and 120B (whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy other than a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) of the IPC.
The FIR was registered based a complaint by Delhi Police's Special Cell inspector Praveen.
"In furtherance of this conspiracy to disrupt the sovereignty of India and cause disaffection against India, a large amount of funds was routed from China in a circuitous and camouflaged manner and paid news were intentionally peddled, criticising domestic policies, development projects of India and promoting, projecting and defending policies and programmes of the Chinese government," the FIR says.
According to the police FIR, this foreign fund was distributed to the supporters of banned Naxal organisation, activist Gautam Navlakha and associates of activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband and activist Javed Anand, Tamara, Jibran, and journalists Urmilesh, Aratrika Halder, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Trina Shankar and Abhisar Sharma.
Navlakha, who is under house arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has been associated with Purkhayasta since 1991 and is also a shareholder of PPK NewsClick Studio Private Limited since 2018, according to the FIR.
"Navlakha remained involved in anti -National nexus with Ghulam Nabi Fai, who is an agent of ISI of Pakistan. Prabir, Neville and other employees of Neville's Shanghai based company -- StarStream -- have exchanged mails which expose their intent to show Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as not part of India," the FIR read.
It also alleged that NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha conspired with a group -- People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) -- including PADS convenor Battini Rao, historian Dilip Simeon, social activist Deepak Dholakia, director of Delhi-based NGO Aman Trust Jamal Kidwai and journalist Kiran Shaheen, among others, to sabotage the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
"A false narrative was propagated to discredit the efforts of the Indian government to contain Covid-19 pandemic," the Delhi Police said in the FIR.
Purkayastha and Amit Charavarty, the human resources department head at NewsClick, were arrested by the Delhi Police on Tuesday.
According to the police, a total of 46 -- 37 men and nine women -- were questioned by the Delhi Police Special Cell.
Journalists Urmilesh and Abhisar Sharma were questioned on Wednesday for a second time.
On Tuesday, raids were conducted at 88 locations in Delhi and seven in other states on the suspects named in the FIR and surfaced in the analysis of data, police had said.