New Delhi:
The Delhi Police have charged NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and human resources head of the news portal Amit Chakraborty for allegedly acting at the behest of the “Chinese State,” their “ultimate paymaster.”
The charge sheet filed under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), is primarily based on the police’s interpretation of strings of email exchanged between Mr. Purkayastha, American millionaire Neville Roy Singham and few others (whose role in the case is under investigation), along with the testimonies of protected witnesses, who include employees of the news portal.
In the 169-page primary charge sheet which has 7,382 pages annexures, the police say that Mr. Purkayastha and Mr. Singham were conspiring “nothing else but to forcibly replace Indian democracy with the Party-State system like the one that exists in present-day China”.
The charge sheet also alleged that Mr. Purkayastha infused funds from China into India to stoke and sustain the 2020 Delhi riots and even the farmers’ protest.
The police claimed that the accused allied, supported and funded Pakistan-sponsored Kashmiri terrorists’ groups and mainland Maoist LWE (Left Wing Extremist) organisations. Also, that they actively supported anti-State mass movement such as the CAA/NRC protests and played a vital part in China’s sponsored information warfare during COVID-19 global pandemic.
The charge sheet also alleged that out of the funds received from Mr. Singham, Mr. Purkayastha gave ₹36 lakh to a person with the direction to give it further to Sharjeel Imam for inciting the Delhi riots of 2020. A part of this funds was also given to SFI activist Anusha Paul and Pawan Kulkarni to instigate protesters and create violence during CAA, NRC protests, it claimed.
Also read: Arrests in the NewsClick case: A package
Media unit
The police claimed that the emails are also indicative of the deep-rooted conspiracy for creating and funding a media unit in India to achieve their nefarious designs.
“To achieve the above objectives of the then crystallising conspiracy, Neville Roy Singham came to India on May 2, 2017. In furtherance of the common conspiracy, he met Prabir Purkayastha and others and discussed further course of action, primarily by way of infusing funds by way of creating off-shore and dependent on-shore companies which would act as a smokescreen for the background anti-State operations apparently at the behest of, or for the benefit of the ultimate paymaster in, the Chinese State,” the charge sheet said.
The Delhi Police also interpreted that Mr. Purkayastha, by sharing an article published in the news portal with Mr. Singham on September 17, 2016, is making ‘a call for supporting mass movements made in the typical Maoist style.’
The operative lines reproduced by the police in the charge sheet said: “We need a strategy that can unite the broadest sections of the people when attacks are directed at what they can say or wrote, wear or eat, or the gods they can worship or not worship. But we also need movements and new movements in the making that are emerging because of the large-scale attacks on citizens’ rights, be they Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women, or working people.”
The same email further says that Mr. Purkayastha and Mr. Singham were also discussing that how they need to rally all sections of the people in on-going and new movements to defend the people and the democratic values in the Constitution.
Among the testimonies of the witnesses, one of the witness GAMA-2 told police that he has seen some ‘Kashmiri’ coming to NewsClick office and Mr. Purkayastha has given them ‘a bag full of cash’ which, the employee told the police, was meant to be given to terrorists in the valley. This witness also told the police that how Mr. Purkayastha’s son Prateek used to get maximum salary in the organisation ‘even when he used to work far lesser as compared to the pay cheques given to him.’
‘No evidence’
Meanwhile, the NewsClick has rejected the allegations made by the police in the charge sheet and maintained that neither Mr. Purkayastha is associated with any terror outfit nor there is any evidence for the same. The organisation maintained that Mr. Purkayastha had a long-term association with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and that his political involvement and views are very much in the public realm. They further reiterate, once again, that the investigations by the Delhi Police and other agencies are attempts to target their independent journalism.
The Special Cell of the Delhi Police had arrested Mr. Purkayastha and Mr. Chakraborty on October 3 last year. The two remain in judicial custody till now but Mr. Chakraborty had filed an application in the court to become an approver in the matter, in January 2024.
The First Information Report came days after The New York Times published a report on August 8, 2023, that the portal received money from Mr. Singham, an “active member of Propaganda department of the Communist Party of China” to distort the map of India by projecting Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as disputed territory.”
The police said that the accused received ₹115 crore foreign funds and then raided 88 locations in Delhi and seven in other States as part of investigation. Around 300 electronic gadgets were seized from the offices of NewsClick and its staff members were interrogated.
