Accused HR Amit Chakravarty allowed to turn approver in NewsClick case
In a big setback to CPI(M)’s website NewsClick, jailed HR head Amit Chakraborty has turned approver in the case registered for accepting Chinese funds for running propaganda against the Indian government. A Delhi Court on Tuesday allowed NewsClick human resource head Amit Chakraborty to turn approver in the case pertaining to more than Rs.30 crore money received for pushing pro-China propaganda through the news portal. The judge also pardoned Chakraborty after he moved the request to turn approver in the case against his former boss and NewsClick founder-editor Prabir Purkayastha, who was once in CPI(M)’s Central Committee and looking after the party’s technical sector.
Both Chakraborty and Purkayastha are in judicial custody, languishing in prison for more than four months. An approver is a person who is directly or indirectly involved or is privy to an offence, later agreeing to Prosecution’s findings. Delhi Police Special Cell had sought a three-month extension for its probe in the NewsClick case. The court granted two months instead of Tuesday.
In October, the Delhi Police had booked Chakraborty, Purkayastha, Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha, and others under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between groups) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, along with Sections 13,16, 17, 18 and 22C of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The agencies charged the CPI(M)’s portal and its promoters for routing more than Rs.30 crore for Chinese propaganda against the BJP-ruled Indian government from Neville Roy Singham, a Sri Lankan-origin US billionaire, now residing in China.
Purkayastha and Chakraborty were arrested and more than 50 journalists, including freelancers and NewsClick staffers, both former and present, were questioned. Their electronic devices were seized by the Special Cell. Activist Navlakha, languishing in jail for the past three years was also questioned in December in connection with the case.
The Delhi Police has charged that NewsClick received illegal funds from US-based millionaire Neville Roy Singham. According to a report by The New York Times in August last year, Singham was “at the centre” of a “global web of Chinese propaganda”. The probe agencies alleged that the CPI(M)’s web portal used funds “illegally received from China” to set up a narrative “through its coverage about protests and violence across the country like the farmers’ agitation, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests, and the Bhima Koregaon violence” and that these funds were used to “discredit” the government’s “handling of the Covid crisis”.
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