NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Saturday filed a chargesheet running into nearly 8,000 pages in the NewsClick case under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in which Prabir Purkayastha, founder and editor-in-chief of the newsportal, is the prime accused.
According to official sources, the chargesheet which named Purkayastha and his company, PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt Ltd, as accused, includes details of the 480 electronic devices that were seized in multiple raids during the investigation.
As approval under Section 45 of the UAPA and Section 196 (for prosecution for offence against state and for criminal conspiracy to commit such offence) of the CrPC are still awaited, the Special Public Prosecutor requested that taking cognisance on the chargesheet be deferred.
Purkayastha and Amit Chakraborty were arrested in October for allegedly being involved in continuous unlawful activities, which included undermining India’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity — like fuelling farmers’ protests through illegal funding or being involved in a “larger conspiracy” of illegally infusing foreign funds in India through Chinese telecom companies.
In the chargesheet, it has been alleged that Purkayastha received money to destabilise the country by creating narratives and attempting to disrupt the 2019 polls.
According to the FIR registered by cops on August 17 last year, funds were routed from China in a camouflaged manner and paid news was peddled criticising domestic policies, development projects of India and promoting, projecting and defending policies and programmes of the Chinese government.