NEW DELHI, Sept 1, Reuter: Scores of armed police entered the offices on Tuesday of the Indian Express, a relentless pursuer of alleged government corruption, where demonstrators were protesting against a raid on the newspaper earlier in the day by revenue officials.

‘A correspondent inside the building said police arrived armed with guns and teargas shells after 100 members of the rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party entered the lobby chanting down with (Prime Minister) Rajiv Gandhi.

No clashes occurred but more police ringed the building and the situation was tense, he said.

Upstairs, in the offices of the Indian Express, India’s most widely read English language newspaper, revenue and customs officials were pressing on with a raid in search of evidence of currency and other irregularities,

Express Editor Arun Shourie described the raid as the worst threat to press freedom since the state of emergency ordered by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ended in 1977. The swoop was matched by similar raids on 11 other express offices across the ‘country.

The Express, with a daily circulation of 650,000 nationwide, campaigns tirelessly against government corruption and the hoarding of wealth overseas by prominent Indians.

Its FrontPage story on Tuesday produced what it said was new evidence of bribes paid over a West German submarine contract, under the headline Government Concealing Facts: Opposition,

Official sources said the raids were to seek evidence of offences against the foreign exchange regulation act, income and wealth tax rules and customs and import regulations Just those laws which The Express says the unnamed. Prominent figures have been contravening.

The up Shourie said the revenue officials arrived in the morning but the editor ordered them to leave because they did not give him a copy of their warrant. Up to 50 of them later returned with the document and resumed their search.

In Bombay and Madras, Reuters Correspondents said officials. Of the directorate of revenue intelligence and the income tax department were searching the local express offices.

An official of the newspaper in. Bombay said: We are being harassed for our unrelenting campaigns against the government and its involvement in various payoff scandals.

He said editorial work, incoming and outgoing messages and news reports were being interfered with and a staff photographers film bad been seized after he took pictures of the raiders.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 4, 1987