New Delhi, March 21 Congress leader Randeep Surjewala on Saturday criticised the BJP-led Centre after police took control of the premises of news agency UNI on Rafi Marg here, saying that treating the media in this way is emerging as a pattern.
In a post on X in Hindi, Surjewala said that the way the police and paramilitary forces treated journalists on the United News of India (UNI) campus makes it clear that "for those in the media that are considered friends, the BJP government's Hitler-like dictatorial decree is – you will be broken, you will be squeezed if you speak too much, if you write too much, if you do too much reporting and if you utter even a single word against the government, you will be twisted".
"This is the order of the rulers. This is the decree of that arrogant tongue... This has not happened just once; it is a pattern, a method – bow down, prostrate yourself, or the rod of power will strike...", he alleged.
Surjewala said that in 2016, the BJP-led Centre imposed a day-long ban on NDTV Group's Hindi news channel, "NDTV India", because its reporting was exposing the government, and in 2017, NDTV and its founders were targeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other investigating agencies, and ultimately, the channel was bought by industrialist Gautam Adani.
In 2023, BBC made a documentary, followed by an income tax raid, he said, adding that something similar also happened to Raghav Bahl's media outlet, "Quint".
Under Bahl's leadership, "Quint" was a symbol of impartial journalism, but AMG Media Networks, a company of the Adani Group, bought a major stake in it, the Congress leader noted.
"Recently, to suppress criticism, the BJP government targeted independent voices like '4 PM' and ultimately shut down this YouTube channel," he said.
Surjewala cited several cases of personal attacks on journalists, including the killing of Gauri Lankesh in 2017 and the arrest of Siddique Kappan under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2020 while he was reporting on the Hathras rape case.
"In the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, India's rank among 180 countries was 151. In the previous year, 2024, it was 159. The whole world is saying in one voice that there is no space for impartial media in India," he said.
Amid heavy police deployment, UNI's Delhi office was sealed by the Land and Development Office (L&DO) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on Friday, following a high court order – a move that the media organisation described as "unprecedented atrocity" and an "attack on freedom of the press".
The news agency also alleged that their female staff members were "manhandled" by the police team.
However, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Sachin Sharma told