45-day covert operation, financial probe culminated in NewsClick raids | India News

NEW DELHI: After filing a terror FIR against web portal NewsClick, the Delhi Police‘s special cell seems to have run a covert technical as well as financial investigation for around 45 days before launching coordinated raids on Tuesday on their suspects, who were categorized in three sections – A, B and C.
The arrested duo – NewsClick’s editor-in-chief Prabir Purkaystha and its human resources head, Amit Chakraborty – were in category A which still has at least four more suspects, sources said.
On August 17, the special cell of Delhi Police filed the FIR under sections of UAPA, (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) and began an investigation, which was initially dependent upon the documents procured from the enforcement directorate.

However, as the probe extended beyond ED’s mandate, with offences like threats to sovereignty of India, a special team was constituted to use technical surveillance and other tools for aiding their investigation, said a source privy to the developments.

The team that was focused on the financial investigation is learnt to have gone through thousands of pages of documents, including corporate filings and bank transactions

, besides some ‘informal payments’ and travel logs of the suspects, said a cop.

Another team was constituted to study the content of the portal, analyse the videos and articles and ascertain if any data had been deleted, said an officer at the police headquarters.

The investigators were focused on tracing Chinese footprints. This preliminary probe concluded last week and the course of action was discussed with police commissioner Sanjay Arora.
Finally, a closed-door meeting was held at the cell’s headquarters at Lodhi Colony on Sunday followed by a final briefing with the top cop on Monday evening after which the raids were planned.
Around 400-450 cops were engaged and divided into teams as decided by the profile of the suspect. “For example, around 8-10 cops were assigned for category A suspects. The team had no information about their assignment till Tuesday morning and were given only a vague area to reach at 5am. Everybody was briefed on a need-to-know basis,” another source explained.

While suspects like Purkaystha and others, whose role had been previously investigated by other agencies, were in category A, the B category comprised mid-level officials of the company and journalists on the payroll of the portal.
The last category was that of consultants whose role has not been defined as yet, it is learnt. In all, there were around 50 suspects to be raided in various states. Finally, the teams swooped in at 6am at prime locations followed by other categories during the day.
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