Indian tax officials carried out searches of British Broadcasting Corporation offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Wednesday for a second consecutive day.
The action, which the government has called a tax "survey," has been slammed by opposition parties, global media watchdogs and Indian media organizations as an attempt to silence dissent and intimidate the media.
The searches began weeks after the broadcaster aired a documentary on communal riots that swept through the western state of Gujarat in 2002, killing at least a 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was its head.
The two-part documentary, "India: The Modi Question," which raised issues about Modi's actions and claims he was "directly responsible" for the "climate of impunity" that enabled the violence, was denounced by India's foreign ministry as "propaganda." It said "the bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly visible" in the coverage.
The BBC has called the documentary "rigorously researched." It was not aired in India, and the government blocked all videos and tweets sharing links to it using emergency powers under its information technology laws. In recent weeks, members of Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have accused the BBC of targeting India at a time when the country's stature is rising globally.
The searches, which began Tuesday, continued overnight and into Wednesday. The Income Tax department has not made any official comment, but the Press Trust of India said that officials were making copies of electronic and other financial data. The BBC has said that it is cooperating fully.
The income tax survey was not vindictive or "done out of a sense of pique," Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, told the Times Now news channel.
Domestic media reports have quoted unnamed sources saying the broadcaster was in "deliberate non-compliance" with its regulations.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington is aware of the search but is not in a position to offer any judgment, adding only that "we support the importance of a free press around the world."
"We continue to highlight the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as human rights that contribute to strengthening democracies around the world," Price told reporters on Tuesday. "It has strengthened this democracy here in this country. It has strengthened India's democracy."
Since the searches began, there has been a chorus of criticism about the action against Britain's public broadcaster, with several pointing out that Indian authorities have used tax investigations as a pretext to target news outlets that are critical.
In a Wednesday editorial, the Indian Express newspaper said given the Modi government's treatment of critical media and civil society, the latest action against the BBC "smacks of bullying and an attempt to intimidate."
The Press Club of India said in a statement Tuesday that the action appears to be a "clear cut case of vendetta, coming within weeks of a documentary aired by the BBC." It said that it "will damage the reputation and image of India as the world's largest democracy."
India's press freedom ranking fell from 142 to 150 in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, in which one is considered most free.
