India Tax Agents Search Offices of Express Paper

Government agents today raided and searched offices throughout the country of the Indian Express, a major national newspaper that has been outspokenly critical of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Agents from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and up to 100 police crowded the Express building in New Delhi. The United News of India news agency said agents also raided Express offices in 11 other cities.

Government radio said the agents were searching for evidence of tax or customs violations by the paper, but Editor Arun Shourie told reporters in New Delhi the raids were an attempt “to intimidate the press.”

“They want to make an example of us--’you stand up to the government, you’ll be knocked down,’ ” Shourie said. “They are not going to frighten us, and this will embolden the rest of the press.”

The Express, India’s largest circulation English-language daily, has been carrying articles, editorials and cartoons alleging a link between Gandhi and a kickback scandal involving arms contracts with foreign companies.

A house in New Delhi used by the newspaper’s chairman, Ram Nath Goenka, also was raided last March after the Express published a leaked copy of a letter from then-President Zail Singh that was critical of Gandhi.

Shourie and Sushil Goenka, the paper’s general manager and son of the chairman, blocked a search of the New Delhi offices for nearly seven hours by demanding copies of search warrants for the building.

Express reporter Murli Krishnan said an agent snatched his notebook away as he took notes on the raid. Express officials in Bombay said an agent exposed the film of a photographer taking pictures of the search there.