At BBC headquarters in Delhi and Mumbai, the income tax agency performs a "survey" not raid

On Tuesday, teams from the Income Tax department conducted a "survey" at the BBC office in New Delhi, according to government representatives.

The tax authorities' visit comes less than a month after the BBC aired a two-part documentary about the 2002 Gujarat riots called India: The Modi Question, which was derided by the Indian government as "propaganda."

The presence of personnel at the BBC headquarters in New Delhi was verified to HT by a Central Board of Direct Taxes representative. It's not a raid; it's a survey, he explained.

According to a second official, the government was looking into "some BBC-related concerns based on clear inputs of various violations." "Surveys are carried out to find out about these anomalies. It wouldn't be known whether there are any intentional abnormalities until the survey was over "The second official spoke, requesting anonymity.

With the help of the Delhi Police's seventh battalion, officials arrived to the office on Tuesday just before noon. There is no connection between the documentary and the survey, as the officials made clear.

The IT "survey" in Mumbai got underway at 11.30 a.m. at the BBC studios in the Bandra Kurla Complex. The BBC's headquarters are in Bandra (West).

When the documentary on the Gujarat riots was released in January, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) criticised it for lacking objectivity and raising questions about its motivations. "It causes us to question the goal and motivation of this practise. This propaganda piece aims to advance a certain, debunked thesis. It is obviously obvious that there is bias, a lack of objectivity, and a persistent colonial mindset "Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the MEA, remarked at the time.

In a statement defending its film, BBC stated: "The documentary series investigates the tensions between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority and analyses the politics of Mr. Modi in relation to those tensions."