“Not the right time”: Farooq Abdullah after I-T dept surveys BBC offices

Srinagar (Jammu & Kashmir) [India], February 14 (ANI): Reacting to the ‘survey’ conducted by sleuths of the I-T department at the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai, former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday said that this is “not the right time” to carry out such operations and that this could have been conducted before airing of the documentary on PM Narendra Modi.

“I think this should not have happened at this time because people will think that this is after effect of the BBC documentary,” he said. “When they would normally have done it earlier, before airing the documentary, we would have believed that there was some mistake on their [BBC] part. But today every person would think that these are efforts to harass them (BBC) in the wake of the documentary,” the NC leader said.

However, condemning the survey, he also said that this is unfortunate.
“Democracy is already under threat here and media is being suppressed and this raid on BBC is an addition to this,” he added.

Earlier this morning, Income tax officials arrived at BBC offices located at the national capital’s KG Marg for the survey. The British broadcaster’s office at Kalina Santacruz in Mumbai was also surveyed, sources said adding that the survey was limited to business premises of BBC only.

According to reports, a team of IT officials arrived at the BBC Studios office in Kalina Santacruz around 11.30 am today and a survey has been going on since then. There is no I-T activity at the BBC News office at Linking Road Bandra West.

It is learnt that the tax officials are conducting verification of certain account documents in the finance department of the BBC offices.

During the investigation, the mobile phones of all the employees present in the BBC office were taken away by the Income Tax team. The data of the computer kept in the accounts and finance department was also scanned. According to sources, officials said the devices will be returned to their owners after taking a backup.

However, as the survey was underway, the British public broadcaster BBC News released a statement, saying that it is cooperating with the Income Tax department, which is conducting a survey at its offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.
“The Income Tax Authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and we are fully cooperating,” the BBC News Press Team said in a statement.

The searches come weeks after the BBC released a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi – ‘India: The Modi Question,” which caused controversy on January 21. The Centre had issued directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the controversial BBC documentary on PM Modi. The Supreme Court had on February 3 directed the central government to produce original records relating to its decision to block the BBC documentary. (ANI)