NEW DELHI
Crores of rupees illegally sent to India by China—for pushing its own agenda and project in poor light the Indian government’s policies—were routed through thousands of shell companies incorporated in India by big Chinese telecom companies like Xiaomi, Vivo etc, the Special Cell of Delhi Police has said in its FIR filed in the NewsClick news portal case.
The police also said in the FIR that NewsClick editor Prabir Purkayastha, Shanghai-based American millionaire Neville Roy Singham, Geeta Hariharan and Gautam Bhatia (key person) conspired to create a Legal Community Network in India to campaign for and put up spirited defence of legal cases against aforementioned Chinese telecom companies in return for benefits from these companies.
The Delhi Police FIR said that NewsClick editor Prabir Purkayastha, Singham and some other Chinese employees of Singham-owned company StarStream exchanged mails to peddle a narrative that Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh are disputed territories.
The FIR described their attempts to tinker with borders of the country as an act intended towards undermining the unity and territorial integrity of India. They and other NGO activists have also been accused of playing a key role in creating internal law and order problems and prolonging the farmers’ agitation.
“The accused have conspired to commit unlawful activities and terrorist acts by aiding and abetting disruption of property through illegal means. By inciting disaffection among the people, especially farmers, towards the democratically elected government of India, they have been creating divisions and disharmony among different group/classes of people as a part of a larger criminal conspiracy having international ramifications,” said the FIR.
Purkayastha, Singham, Vijay Parshad and others propagated false narratives to discredit the efforts of the Indian government to contain Covid-19 pandemic. They also maligned the domestic pharmaceutical industry, it said.
Purkayastha, with the help of a group called People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS), helped in routing Chinese funds and used these for paid news aimed at criticising domestic policies, development projects and promoting and defending policies of the Chinese government, the FIR said.
The FIR said that since April 2018, fraudulent funds in crores of rupees have been received by PPK NewsClick Studio Private Limited through illegal means during a short span of five years from Worldwide Media Holdings LLC, USA and other.
It said the shareholders of PPK NewsClick Studio include Purkayastha, Amit Sengupta, Doraeeswami Raghunandan, Bappaditya Sinha, Gautam Navlakha, Geeta Hariharan, Amit Chakravarty and Worldwide Media Holding.
The Delhi Police claimed that foreign funds have been fraudulently infused by Singham, resident of Shanghai, and an active member of propaganda department of the Communist Party of China through a complex web of several entities including Worldwide Media Holdings that were incorporated to infuse funds in India by circumventing the existing rules for receipt of foreign funds by NGOs.
The FIR also said that Navlakha had a nexus with ISI agent Gulam Nabi Fai and was involved in anti-India and unlawful activities such as supporting banned Naxal organisations.
The FIR against NewsClick and its editors were filed under UAPA Sections 13 (unlawful activities); 16 (terrorist act); 17 (raising funds for terrorist acts); 18 (conspiracy); 22 (C) (offences by companies, trusts); along with IPC Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different group) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).