Censorship

Avani Dias, the South Asia Bureau Chief for Australian broadcasting firm, ABC News has claimed that she had to leave India on April 19 after being denied a visa extension by the Indian government because her reporting “crossed a line”, an allegation that has been termed ‘misleading’ by official sources.

Taking to microblogging platform X, Avani Dias said while she obtained a visa extension for two months after “intervention from the Australian government”, it was just 24 hours before her flight out of India. Meanwhile, ABC News said in its statement that Dias was informed of the decision to deny her a visa extension “via a phone call from an official at the Ministry of External Affairs, who said her most recent Foreign Correspondent episode ‘crossed a line’”.

This came after a report by Dias on the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada was blocked on YouTube in India, the media organisation said.