ED conducts raids on Amnesty International's Bengaluru office in connection with investigation into funding

The Enforcement Directorate is conducting raids at the India office of non-governmental organisation Amnesty International in Bengaluru, officials have said. The raids are being conducted in connection with a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) probe against the organisation. [caption id=“attachment_5448061” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Media personnel outside the Amnesty office in Bengaluru on Thursday. PTI[/caption] The raids began at 2 pm, and laptops of several individuals have been confiscated, according to a report in The News Minute. This is not the first time that the human rights organisation is in the eye of a storm. In 2016, an FIR was registered against Amnesty under various IPC sections, including sedition, in connection with the alleged raising of “independence” slogans by “pro-freedom” Kashmiris who entered into an argument with a Kashmiri Pandit leader. This was at an event of the organisation in Bengaluru. The raids against Amnesty come even as an alliance of 400 organisations urged the Centre to refrain from using “coercive methods” to silence NGOs. The statement of the alliance was made after raids by ED on Greenpeace India. The statement said the duty of the government is to engage with the dissenting voices, even those which are highly critical of the very development model being pursued by the government, rather than trying to shut down such organisations. With inputs from PTI