NEW DELHI
\nIndia has blocked the airing of a BBC documentary which questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots, saying that even sharing of any clips via social media is barred.
\nThe documentary takes a critical look at the role of Modi in the deadly 2002 Gujarat riots.
\nMultiple YouTube videos of the first episode of the BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question, and more than 50 tweets with links to the YouTube videos were ordered to be taken down, Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, tweeted on Saturday.
\nHe said that the content was blocked using the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021. \u201cBoth @YouTube and @Twitter have complied with the directions,\u201d he tweeted.
\nThe first episode of the two-part series documentary, which aired on January 17, tracked Modi\u2019s early years as a politician and his rise through the ranks of the governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
\nModi was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat when it was gripped by communal riots that left more than 1,000 people dead \u2013 most of them Muslims. The violence erupted after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught fire, killing 59.
\nThe documentary revealed for the first time a United Kingdom government report into the deadly 2002 religious riots. The UK report said the events had \u201call the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing\u201d, the documentary showed.
\nJack Straw, who was the UK\u2019s foreign secretary at the time of the violence, was also interviewed in the documentary and said allegations against Modi undermined his reputation.
\n\u201cThese were very serious claims \u2013 that Chief Minister Modi had played a pretty active part in pulling back the police and in tacitly encouraging the Hindu extremists,\u201d Straw said. \u201cThat was a particularly egregious example.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat we did was establish an inquiry and have a team go to Gujarat and find out for themselves what had happened. And they produced a very thorough report,\u201d he added.
\nThe report also claimed there was widespread rape of Muslim women during the 2002 violence. It added that the riots\u2019 objective was to \u201cpurge Muslims from Hindu areas\u201d \u2013 something critics today have said has become state policy under the BJP\u2019s Hindu nationalist agenda.
\nIn 2013, the UK ended a 10-year boycott of Modi over the 2002 riots that killed three British citizens.
\nThe documentary was not made available in India, but it was uploaded on several YouTube channels and shared widely on Twitter, with a number of hashtags trending such as #BBCDocumentary #BBCQuitIndia and #GujaratRiots among others. The second episode will be aired on January 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI India has blocked the airing of a BBC documentary which questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots, saying that even sharing of any clips via social media is barred. The documentary takes a critical look at the role of Modi in the deadly 2002 Gujarat riots. Multiple YouTube videos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-309073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n