Delhi Police questions journalists Urmilesh, Abhisar Sharma in NewsClick case

New Delhi: The Delhi Police Thursday questioned journalists Urmilesh and Abhisar Sharma for a second time this week in connection with alleged funding to the NewsClick portal from China to peddle fake narrative about the central government, officials said.

They reached the Delhi Police Special Cell's office at Lodhi Colony and joined the investigation this afternoon, the officials said, adding their questioning was underway.

This comes two days after the Special Cell arrested NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and human resources department head Amit Chakravarty in connection with the case.

On Tuesday, a total of 46 journalists and contributor to the NewsClick were questioned and their mobile phones and other electronic gadgets were seized.

Sharma had said after the questioning on Tuesday he was not scared of the action and will keep asking tough question to the government.

According to the remand copy the Delhi Police submitted in the court on Wednesday, the illegally routed foreign funds have been siphoned off by Purkayastha and his associates -- Joseph Raj, Anoop Chakraborty (brother of Amit Chakraborty) and Bappaditya Sinha (promoter of Virtunet Systems Pvt Ltd).

"It is also learnt that aforementioned funds were distributed to Gautam Navlakha, associates of Teesta Seetalwaad namely Javed Anand, Tamara, Jibran, Urmilesh, Aratrika Halder, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Trina Shankar, Abhisar Sharma, etc.," it stated.

The officials said all those members are on the radar of the Special Cell and they will be called for questioning.

It was also learnt that Gautam Navlakha, a shareholder in NewsClick, remained involved in anti-India and unlawful activities such as actively supporting banned Naxal organisations and having anti-national nexus with Gulam Nabi Fai, an agent of Pakistan's ISI, according to the remand copy.

A raid was conducted on Tuesday at 88 locations in Delhi and seven in other states on the suspects named in the FIR and surfaced in the analysis of data.