NEW DELHI: Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday condemned the raids conducted at various premises connected to people working or associated with the news portal NewsClick.
The special cell of Delhi Police also landed at Yechury’s official residence in New Delhi in the morning.
The leader said that the police team had come to question his staffer Sri Narayan's son Sunmit Kumar.
Terming the incident as an attempt to gag the media, he said, “Police came to my residence because the comrade who works in our office lives there. His son works for the NewsClick. The police came to question him. They just took his laptop and phone. What are the charges? Nobody knows. If this is an attempt to muzzle the media, what is the issue, the country must know.”
Reacting to the multiple raids, Yechury took to the micro-blogging site ‘X'.
“Strongly condemn the growing brazen assaults on the media. After harassing and intimidating various media houses and journalists who speak truth to power, Modi govt is today indiscriminately raiding those connected with popular media portal NewsClick,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, the CPIM issued a statement to criticize the police action.
It stated that the party strongly condemns the early morning raids on homes of several journalists, stand-up comedians, satirists, scientists, cultural historians and commentators by the Delhi Police on the basis of an FIR that invokes several sections of the draconian UAPA.
The CPIM said that it would call upon all Indian democratic-minded patriots to rise in unison to protest against such a systematic conspiracy to target, persecute and suppress the media that is meant to be the conscience keeper.
“This is a brazen assault on the media and the fundamental right to freedom of expression. During the last nine years, the Modi government has deployed investigation agencies to suppress, harass and intimidate various media houses like the BBC, Newslaundry, Dainik Bhaskar, Bharat Samachar, the Kashmir Walla, the Wire etc., and now raiding all those connected with the NewsClick…Such a large-scale authoritarian assault against media organizations and journalists who speak truth to power is totally unacceptable,” the statement read.