Raid on news portal bid to curb free speech: BKU

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 10

The Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) has condemned the raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the office of online portal ‘Newsclick’ and the homes of its owner Prabir Purkayastha, editor Pranjal and human resources head Amit Chakravarty yesterday.

Newsclick has been providing a platform to leading investigative journalists like Pranjoy Guha Thakurta and video journalists Abhisar Sharma and P Sainath among others. It has also been reporting extensively on the farmers’ agitation for the past two months. BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said: “Our organisation strongly condemns these raids as a serious attack on the online media and freedom of press. We consider it a continuation of repressive measures adopted against several senior journalists last week by filing sedition charges against them and also curbing free speech on Twitter and YouTube. Our organisation aks the government to stop such raids and other repressive activities immediately.”