A week after the Enforcement Directorate summoned US businessman Neville Roy Singham in the NewsClick case, the Delhi police has sought “financial” details of five companies linked to him in a letter to the US authorities.       

Media outlet NewsClick – which is probed for China-linked foreign funding violations – had received foreign direct investment of Rs 77 crore from these five entities between 2018 and 2021, said a report in The Indian Express.

The five companies are: Worldwide Media Holdings LLC; Justice and Education Fund Inc; Tricontinental Ltd Inc; G Span LLC; and Centro Popular Demidas of Brazil. While claiming that the companies are linked to Singham, the ED has called the businessman  “a contact person of the Communist Party of China, China”.

The Indian Express cited unnamed sources as saying that the Delhi police’s Economic Offences Wing has asked specific questions to the US government, including details about the investors of the companies. 

Earlier this month, NewsClick told the Delhi High Court that the case lodged against it was malafide, and also sought to quash the FIR registered by the EOW. 

The portal’s founder Prabir Purkayastha and HR head Amit Chakraborty were arrested under the UAPA on October 3, after The New York Times alleged that NewsClick was among Chinese propaganda outlets funded by Singham. Later, in a four-page rebuttal, Singham had called the NYT article “misleading” and an “innuendo-laden hit piece”.

In the run-up to Purkayastha and Chakraborty’s arrests, the Delhi police had raided over 30 locations and questioned about 50 journalists linked to NewsClick and seized their electronic devices. 

Newslaundry earlier reported how NewsClick is struggling to publish with borrowed devices as their office has been sealed, and the staff are working from home amid “threat” of further action. Read all about it here.