Amnesty office raided over ‘foreign fund violations’

NEW DELHI: Amnesty International yesterday accused the Indian government of seeking to “instil fear” among rights groups after police raided one of its offices over alleged violations of foreign funding rules.

Enforcement Directorate investigators searched the Amnesty office in the southern city of Bangalore for several hours on Thursday.

Similar action has been taken against environmental pressure group Greenpeace.

The directorate, which investigates financial crimes, said the international rights watchdog was suspected of having channelled 360 million rupees (RM19 million) into the country in violation of funding rules.

A directorate official confirmed the raid and said Amnesty had breached rules by “floating a commercial entity” to bring in money from abroad.

Amnesty insisted that it was “compliant” with government rules in a Twitter statement and slammed what it called a “disturbing pattern” in the action of the authorities.

“It is clear that the government wants to instil fear among civil society organisations,” said Amnesty.

Amnesty India spokesman Smriti Singh said the group was not aware of any material being seized, but that it was assessing events.

Amnesty has been a vocal critic of the right wing Indian government’s treatment of minorities and abuses in conflict zones, such as disputed Kashmir and in the campaign against Maoist militants in central India.

On Oct 11, the same agency raided the Greenpeace India offices in Bangalore.