{"id":8733,"date":"2023-04-13T07:15:52","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T07:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/india-opens-new-investigation\/"},"modified":"2023-04-13T07:16:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T07:16:18","slug":"india-opens-new-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/india-opens-new-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"India opens new investigation into BBC in widening crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Aftab Ahmed<\/p>\n<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India&#8217;s financial crime-fighting agency has opened an investigation into alleged violations of foreign exchange rules by the BBC, a source told Reuters on Thursday, months after tax officials searched the broadcaster&#8217;s Mumbai and Delhi offices.<\/p>\n<p>The tax raids in February had come close on the heels of the release of a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#8217;s leadership of the state of Gujarat during riots in 2002. At least 1,000 people were killed in the riots, most of them Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>The latest investigation is being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under India&#8217;s Foreign Exchange Management Act. The agency issued a notice to the BBC in March and questioned some employees earlier this month, said the source, who declined to be named citing the sensitivity of the matter.<\/p>\n<p>An ED spokesperson did not immediately respond to calls and a text message seeking comment. The BBC did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n<p>The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, is a civil law and the ED conducts investigations into suspected contraventions of it to &#8220;adjudicate and impose penalties&#8221; on those found guilty, it says\u00a0on\u00a0its\u00a0website.<\/p>\n<p>British Foreign Minister James Cleverly, during a visit to New Delhi in March, raised the BBC tax searches with his Indian counterpart.<\/p>\n<p>Relations between India and Britain, who are working to seal a delayed free-trade agreement, have also been strained by protests outside the Indian High Commission in London last month.<\/p>\n<p>India on Wednesday asked Britain for increased monitoring of UK-based supporters of a Sikh separatist movement following a &#8220;breach of security&#8221; at the High Commission. The British government said this week they were working to &#8220;review security and make changes to ensure the safety of its staff&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Aftab Ahmed, writing by Sakshi Dayal Editing by Krishna N. Das)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/india-opens-new-investigation\/income-tax-officials-conduct-a-search-at-bbc-office-in\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C066-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C066-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Aftab Ahmed NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India&#8217;s financial crime-fighting agency has opened an investigation into alleged violations of foreign exchange rules by the BBC, a source told Reuters on Thursday, months after tax officials searched the broadcaster&#8217;s Mumbai and Delhi offices. The tax raids in February had come close on the heels of the release [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C066-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8735,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733\/revisions\/8735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}