In an interview to discuss Tuesday’s sweeping raids against 46 journalists in 50 houses and offices carried out by over 200 policemen, former chief media advisor to Manmohan Singh when he was prime minister, Sanjaya Baru, has said this is “intimidation”, “a fishing expedition” and “reminiscent of the Emergency”.Speaking to The Wire, Baru, who was earlier editor of Business Standard, said the scale of this operation is “a sign of incompetence” on the part of the police. He said it is ridiculous to question journalists about whether they covered events such as the farmers’ protests, the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the Delhi riots. Journalists are duty bound to cover such developments and the mere fact they have done so cannot by any leap of the imagination be deemed to be anti-national.Speaking specifically about the charges against Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty of NewsClick, Baru described them as “laughable”.Three specific sets of charges against the NewsClick journalists were discussed with Baru. They are the claim that they used Chinese money “to create disaffection amongst various sections of society” including creating “a false narrative … to discredit the efforts of the Indian government to contain the Covid-19 pandemic”. Second, the police claim that “secret inputs revealed … (Neville Roy Singham and Purkayastha) exchanged emails which expose their intent to show Kashmir and Arunachal is not part of India … (thus) undermining the unity and territorial integrity of India”. The third charge against the NewsClick journalists is their friendship with Gautam Navlakha since 1991 and the fact he is a shareholder of NewsClick since its inception in 2018.Baru also said it’s “a sad day” that no editor of any major newspaper or major news channel was present at the protest held at the Press Club of India on Wednesday.A transcript of the interview is being prepared and will be published when ready.
