The Asia desk of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed their ‘concerns’ about media reports which suggested ‘tax officials have cloned data from The Quint co-founder and its CEO’s gadgets containing sensitive journalistic material during a tax raid’, calling it a ‘direct attack on journalistic freedom’ on Twitter Thursday.
CPJ is concerned about news report that suggest tax officials have cloned data from @TheQuint co-founder @kapur_ritu‘s gadgets containing sensitive journalistic material during a tax raid. This is a direct attack on journalistic freedom. https://t.co/5GvhsVNUzY #pressfreedom
— CPJ Asia (@CPJAsia) October 11, 2018
This is in connection with The Associate Editor of The Quint, Poonam Agarwal who, on Twitter, said that the IT officers were ‘trying to clone data’ of the Founder and CEO of the Media organisation, Ritu Kapur.
IT officers are trying to clone data from @kapur_ritu‘s gadgets. When she screamed and asked me about the law of privacy and whether they can clone her journalistic and personal material, while I was standing outside her residence, two IT officers pulled her inside the house.
— Poonam Agarwal (@poonamjourno) October 11, 2018
Earlier, The Editors Guild of India expressed their concerns over the ‘search and survey’ by Income Tax officials in The Quint offices and The News Minute, and the residence of TQ founder Raghav Bahl on Thursday.
“The Editors Guild of India expresses concern over the search and survey conducted by the Income Tax Department today at the offices of The Quint, a media company, and at the residence of its founder and promoter, Raghav Bahl,” said a statement issued today.
“Bahl is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Editors Guild of India and a founder of the Network18 group. In his statement, Bahl has said that ‘we are a fully tax compliant entity, and will provide all access to all appropriate financial documents’,” the statement said.
Earlier, IT officials conducted a ‘survey’ on The Quint’s office in Noida and the media organisation’s founder Raghav Bahl’s home, Bahl said, as per a report in Scroll .
The IT officials ‘surveyed’ The Quint Type office including The Quint and The News Minute, sources inside The Quint disclosed to Free Press Kashmir Thursday.
Upon entering the office, the officials had asked the people to stop working and give up their phones. However, after briefly exchanging words about the nature of journalistic work, the officials agreed for them to continue, sources told FPK.
The IT team of officials are still inside the office and are searching the files of the office, sources said to FPK.
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