Condemning the Enforcement Directorate’s raids at the office of News Click and the homes of its directors and editor Prabir Purkayastha, DIGIPUB News India Foundation, which represents digital news platforms, said they were a “clear attempt to suppress journalism critical of the government and its allies”.

The raids at the digital news organisation’s office and the homes of its top management were launched on Tuesday. The ED has refused to speak on record, but one of the agency’s officials at the News Click office claimed to Newslaundry that the raids were “just a routine check”.

“Such use of state agencies to intimidate journalists and suppress adversarial journalism is detrimental to not only the freedom of the press, but also the very idea of democratic accountability,” DIGIPUB said in its statement. “Everyone emerges poorer in the long run.”

The foundation demanded that the government immediately stop the ED’s action against News Click and explain why it was raided to begin with. It warned that a “press free, so integral to the preservation of democracy, can’t survive if journalists aren’t allowed to carry their professional work without fear”.