Indian tax officials have raided the BBC’s offices in New Delhi.
Teams from the tax department surveyed the BBC’s Delhi and Mumbai offices, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting officials who were not identified.
A BBC spokesperson said: “The income tax authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and we are fully cooperating.
“We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.”
Indian tax authorities have so far declined to comment.
The search of the offices comes just weeks after the broadcaster released a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the anti-Musilm riots in 2002 when he was chief minister of Gujarat in which more than 1,000 people died.
Mr Modi has denied allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed, and the Supreme Court said it found no evidence to prosecute him.
Last year, the court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Mr Modi’s exoneration.
The second portion of the two-part documentary “examines the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019”, according to the BBC’s website.
The Indian government banned the documentary, authorities moved to stop screenings and restricted clips of it on social media in a move that critics branded an assault on press freedom.
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The government invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block the programme.
Twitter and YouTube complied with government requests and removed many links to the documentary.
India’s foreign ministry at the time called the documentary a…
