The Delhi Police which is probing the NewsClick illegal funding case, in its FIR, has stated that a large amount of funds came from China in order to disrupt India's sovereignty and cause disaffection against the country.
"... secret inputs have been received that foreign funds in crores have been illegally infused in India by Indian and Foreign entities inimical to India... Since April 2018, such fraudulent funds in crores of rupees have been received by M/s PPK NewsCLick Studio Pvt Ltd through illegal means during a short span of five years from M/s Worldwide Media Holdings LLC and others..." the FIR states.
"In furtherance of this conspiracy to disrupt the sovereignty of India and cause disaffection against India, a large amount of funds was routed from China in a circuitous and camouflaged manner and paid news were intentionally peddled, criticising domestic policies, development projects of India and promoting, projecting and defending policies and programmes of the Chinese government," the FIR read.
It also alleges that the founder and editor-in-chief of NewsClick, Prabir Purkayastha, conspired with a group — People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) -- to sabotage the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Purkayastha and Amit Charavarty, the human resources department head at NewsClick, have been arrested by the Delhi Police.
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Excerpts of FIR
- The illegal funds to disrupt the integrity of India was received by NewsClick in April, 2018.
- These foreign funds was fraudulently infused by and active member of Communist Party of China Neville Roy Singham
- This foreign fund was distributed to supporters of banned naxal organisation, Gautam Navlakha and associates of Teesta Seetalvad, Javed Anand, Tamara, Jibran, Urmilesh, Aratrika Halder, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Trina Shankar and Abhisar Sharma.
- Navlakha has at one side having associated with Prabir Purkhayasta since 1991, he is also a shareholder of PPK NewsClick studio pvt ltd.
- Prabir, Neville and other employees of Neville's Shanghai-based company - StarStream have exchanged emails which expose their intent to show as Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as not part of India.
- They also tried to disrupt the essential supplies of India during farmers' protests.
- Prabir conspired with a group called People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) to sabotage the electoral process during the General elections 2019. A fasle narrative was propagated to discredit the efforts of Indian govt to contain Covid 19 pandemic
- PPK NewsClick studio pvt ltd used a People's Dispatch Portal to intentionally peddling false narratives through paid News in lieu of crores of rupees of illegally routed foreign funds as part of the conspiracy.
- In the emails, Prabir and Amit Chakraborty along with Neville Singham discussing how to create a map of India without Kashmir and to show Arunachal Pradesh as a disputed area.
- To achieve the target the accused persons received over Rs 115 crore from foreign entities.
