On Tuesday (16th April), the Delhi Police Special Cell informed Delhi’s Patiala House Court that it has obtained all the requisite sanctions to prosecute NewsClick founder-editor Prabir Purkayastha. The case pertains to the allegations that his news portal received illicit funding from China for peddling pro-China propaganda.
The Special Cell has submitted three sanction orders in the form of a supplementary chargesheet. It has filed two sanctions under Section 45 of UAPA while the third sanction is under Section 196 CrPC for prosecuting the accused in the NewsClick Chinese funding case.
The court will likely take cognisance of the first charge sheet on 30th April, the next date of hearing in this matter. Earlier, on 30th March 2024, the Delhi Police Special Cell filed over 8,000-page chargesheet against NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha.
Purkayastha and Newsclick HR Amit Chakraborty were arrested on 3rd October, 2023, following day-long searches at over 50 locations linked to the news portal, its employees, and contributors. After the searches, which were carried out across the National Capital Region and Mumbai, the police said a total of 46 suspects had been questioned and their digital devices seized. The police also sealed the news portal’s office in Delhi.
Purkayastha and Chakraborty have been in judicial custody since November. Later, in December, Chakravarty filed a plea in Delhi court and turned approver in the case.
It is pertinent to note that Prabir Purkayastha and Chakraborty have been accused of receiving illicit funding from China which was routed through the United States.
The Special Cell registered an FIR in August 2023 under sections of the UAPA and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The FIR also mentioned Purkayastha’s “friendship since 1991” with Urban Naxal Gautam Navlakha, who is under house arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case (aka Bhima Koregaon case).
The Special Cell’s FIR against Prabir Purkayastha included a detailed list of assertions, including attempts to portray Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir as “not parts of India,” attacks on the Indian government’s efforts to combat Covid, financial support for the farmers’ agitation, and “putting up a spirited defence of legal cases” against Chinese telecom companies like Vivo and Xiaomi.
In its remand application, the Special Cell stated there were “secret inputs” that “foreign funds in crores have been infused illegally in India by Indian and foreign entities inimical to India in pursuance of conspiracy with the intention to disrupt sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, to cause disaffection against India and to threaten the unity, integrity, security of India”.
It also stated that an analysis of 4.27 lakh emails showed that the accused were “in direct touch with each other” and were “discussing how to create a new map of India without Kashmir and to show Arunachal Pradesh as a disputed area”, and to this end, they had received more than Rs 115 crore in the guise of foreign funds.
OpIndia had earlier reported on some of their email correspondence in which they received inputs from controversial US millionaire Neville Roy Singham, who is on the payroll of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to peddle a Chinese narrative in India. In these email exchanges, they discussed how to report the India-China border dispute, portray Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir as “not parts of India,” and publish pro-Chinese propaganda.
In addition, Purkayastha is accused of working with the People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) to undermine the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
