NEW DELHI — India’s Finance Ministry accused the BBC of tax evasion on Friday, saying that it had not absolutely declared its revenue and income from its operations within the nation.

Indian tax authorities ended three days of searches of the British broadcaster’s New Delhi and Mumbai places of work on Thursday evening. Opposition political events and different media organizations have criticized the searches as an try and intimidate the media.

Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have questioned the timing of the searches, which got here weeks after the BBC aired a documentary within the U.Okay. that was important of Modi.

“The division gathered a number of evidences pertaining to the operation of the group which point out that tax has not been paid on sure remittances which haven’t been disclosed as revenue in India by the overseas entities of the group,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes stated in an announcement.

It stated they discovered “a number of discrepancies and inconsistencies“ and had gathered “essential proof” from statements of workers, digital proof and paperwork which might be examined extra absolutely later.

There was no speedy remark from the BBC. It stated on Thursday that it will proceed to cooperate with Indian authorities and hoped that the matter may very well be resolved as quickly as potential.

The Press Belief of India information company cited unnamed officers as saying on Thursday that investigators collected monetary knowledge from choose BBC staffers and made copies of digital and paper knowledge from the information group.

It stated the investigation was being carried out to analyze points associated to worldwide taxation and switch pricing of BBC subsidiary firms.

The chief of India’s essential opposition Congress celebration, Mallikarjun Kharge, has described the search of the BBC places of work as an assault on freedom of the press underneath Modi’s authorities.

Reporters With out Borders, a global media watchdog, denounced the federal government’s motion as “makes an attempt to clamp down on impartial media.”

“These raids have all the looks of a reprisal in opposition to the BBC for releasing a documentary important of Prime Minister Narendra Modi three weeks in the past. They’ve come at a time when impartial media are being hounded an increasing number of, and when pluralism is shrinking in India attributable to elevated media focus,” the group stated in an announcement on Thursday.

The documentary, “India: The Modi Query,” was broadcast within the U.Okay. final month, inspecting the prime minister’s function within the 2002 anti-Muslim riots within the western state of Gujarat, the place he was chief minister on the time. Greater than 1,000 folks had been killed within the violence.

Modi has denied allegations that authorities underneath his watch allowed and even inspired the bloodshed, and the Supreme Courtroom stated it discovered no proof to prosecute him. Final yr, the court docket dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim sufferer questioning Modi’s exoneration.

This system drew an instantaneous backlash from India’s authorities, which invoked emergency powers underneath its info expertise legal guidelines to dam it from being proven within the nation. Native authorities scrambled to cease screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms together with Twitter and YouTube complied with authorities requests to take away hyperlinks to the documentary.

The BBC stated on the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and concerned a variety of voices and opinions.

“We supplied the Indian Authorities a proper to answer to the issues raised within the sequence — it declined to reply,” its assertion stated.

India’s International Ministry referred to as the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a very discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.