Newsclick HR head Chakravarty moves Delhi court seeking to turn approver

New Delhi: The Human Resources head of the news portal NewsClick has applied to be considered as a government witness in the terror case brought under the anti-terror law UAPA, for allegedly receiving funding to disseminate pro-China propaganda, according to official sources on Monday. The application was filed with a Delhi court.

In order to record Chakravarty's statement, the judge has put the case before a magisterial court.

According to police sources, the agency will decide on whether to support his application before the court after going through his statement.

According to sources, the arrested accused Amit Chakraborty, who is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, had moved the application before a session's Court on Saturday. "Now his statement will most likely be recorded under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure before a Magistrate," they said.

Notably, the Delhi Police had arrested NewsClick founder and Editor Prabir Purkayastha and HR Head Amit Chakraborty in October for allegedly being involved in continuous unlawful activities which included undermining India's unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity -- be it protracting farmers' protest through illegal funding or being involved in a “larger conspiracy” of illegally infusing foreign funds in India through Chinese telecom companies.

According to the FIR registered by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on August 17, this year, large amounts of funds were routed from China in a circuitous and camouflaged manner and paid news was intentionally peddled criticising domestic policies, development projects of India and promoting, projecting and defending policies and programmes of the Chinese government.

Pertinent to mention here that the case registered by the Delhi Police was based on a reference sent by the ED following its probe last year.

On August 5, this year, The New York Times published a report titled “A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a US Tech Mogul” which claimed that the news portal NewsClick was part of a global network that received funding from an American millionaire Neville Roy Singham, who allegedly works closely with the Chinese government media.

Following the sensational NYT report, the NewsClick had also issued a statement and claimed that the allegations made against it “are unfounded and without basis in fact or law."

Interestingly, the FIR in the NewsClick case also mentioned the name of activist and journalist Gautam Navlakha, who the police stated has been a shareholder in the NewsClick company since 2018. As per the cops, Navlakha remained involved in anti-Indian and unlawful activities such as actively supporting banned naxal organisations and having an anti-national nexus with Gulam Nabi Fai, who is an agent of ISI, Pakistan.

According to the FIR, Gautam Navlakha was associated with Prabir Purkayastha since 1991 when they incorporated a company through which Purkayastha illegally siphoned off foreign funds.

Sources said the Special Cell of Delhi Police will also interrogate Gautam Navlakha at his residence in Mumbai next week. Navlakha had recently got bail in the Bhima Koregaon case.

With PTI inputs