On Friday (20th October), a Delhi Court extended the judicial custody of Chinese propaganda portal NewClick‘s editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and its human resources (HR) head Amit Chakraborty. This comes as both were produced before the court on the expiry of their ten days of judicial custody.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Hardeep Kaur of Patiala House Court passed the order on Friday, extending the judicial custody of Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakraborty for five more days.
They had previously been remanded to police custody for seven days, which the Delhi High Court upheld. As reported earlier, the duo has now petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the dismissal of their petitions challenging their police remand under the anti-terror law UAPA registered by Delhi Police’s Special Cell in the case of Chinese funding.
The duo was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police on Tuesday (October 3) and subsequently remanded to seven days of police custody by a Delhi court on October 4th. The special cell of the Delhi Police had registered an FIR in the matter on 17th August under Sections 13, 16, 17, 18, and 22 of the UAPA and Sections 153A and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the news portal.
The arrest came after the Delhi Police conducted raids on the homes of several journalists and employees linked to NewsClick. The Delhi Police had registered a fresh case under UAPA, other than the ED case, as per reports. UAPA is related to charges under terrorist activities and terror funding.
The Delhi office of NewsClick was sealed by the police. According to reports, 46 people were questioned, and digital gadgets, including laptops and mobile phones, as well as documents, were seized for investigation. Journalists Urmilesh, Aunindyo Chakravarty, Abhisar Sharma, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, and Sohail Hashmi, as well as satirist Sanjay Rajoura and D. Raghunandan of the Centre for Technology & Development, were among those questioned. They were permitted to leave after being questioned for more than six hours.
