Indian police raided the office of a news portal and the homes of journalists and writers linked to it on Tuesday as part of an investigation into suspected illegal foreign funding of the media company, two government officials said.
Laptops and mobile phones were taken away as part of the investigation into the media company NewsClick, the officials and some of the journalists said.
“A special investigations team launched a search operation to identify all those individuals who were possibly getting funds from overseas to run a media group with the main agenda of spreading foreign propaganda,” said an official in the interior ministry overseeing the raids by the Delhi Police.
The raids were part of an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate, India’s financial crime agency, into suspected money laundering by NewsClick, the official said.
Another ministry official said the raids were conducted at more than a dozen homes of journalists and some other writers linked to NewsClick.
