NEW DELHI: Sept 1, Reuter: Government investigators raided India’s biggest English language newspaper chain on Tuesday in what its editor called an attack on press freedom, Indian Express editor ArunShourie told Reuters the newspaper’s offices in 14 cities were raided by hundreds of agents including officers of the finance ministry’s direct orate of revenue intelligence.

‘The purpose is to intimidate the press.. To blunt the express and signal to the rest of the press you fall in line or we will take care of you also, Shourie said.

They were the first government raids on a national newspaper since former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a two-year emergency on the country from 1975 to 1977.

In March, intelligence agents raided the home of Ram Nath Goenka, Chairman of the Indian Express group, after the newspaper published a leaked letter from former Indian President Zail Singh criticizing Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi Shourie said the latest raids would not deter the newspaper from its crusade against government corruption and illegal holding of foreign funds by Indians.

Shourie said the investigators were seeking evidence he held against Ajitabh Bachchan, a close friend of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, on alleged illegal foreign exchange activities.

They (The Government) knew we were after Ajitabh Bachchan and we are close to incriminating him for the illegal purchase of a flat in Switzerland, Shourie said.

This Prime Minister is closely involved with the Bachchan brothers..(but) no Prime Minister is going to jeopardise his Prime Minister ship merely for a friend, he added.

A reasonable inference is that he is doing this to protect himself, Shourie said Amitabh Bachchan is India’s highest paid film star. He was one ‘of Gandhi’s closest political advisers until he resigned from parliament last month after the Indian Express published evidence that his brother owned a luxury Swiss apartment in alleged violation of exchange regulations.

Gandhi’s image has been tied by the charges amid a series of scandals involving alleged kickbacks in purchases of West German submarines and swedish bofors howitzers,

Investigating officials, however, said the raids were to unearth documents that would implicate the newspaper in illegal imports of equipment in violation of the customs acts,

 

Rightwing demonstrators heckled about 100 armed police during the raid on the newspaper’s New Delhi editorial headquarters.

They shouted down with Rajiv Gandhi and attacks on the press will not be tolerated, but there was no violence,

The search of the New Delhi offices was delayed six hours after Shourie demanded a copy of the search warrant and lawyers for the newspaper and) the Goverment argued over its validity.

In Bombay, a newspaper spokesman said 28 men from the directorate of revenue intelligence and tax departments searched it’s of files Raids were also reported on offices in other major cities including Madras and Bangalore in the south and Atinedabantatenen.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 4, 1987