Australian journalist’s departure from India appears to be part of a growing pattern

After French journalist Vanessa Dougnac, now it is the turn of Indian-Australian journalist Avani Dias. Australian broadcaster’s South Asia bureau chief ABC NewsShe, who left India on April 19, said in an ex post on Tuesday that she was denied a visa extension by the Indian government because her report had “crossed a line”.

Dias said in his post that, although he was eventually given a two-month extension after “the intervention of the Australian government”, it came only 24 hours before his flight out of India.

In February, Dougnac, India’s longest-serving foreign correspondent, who lived in the country for more than two decades and worked as South Asia correspondent for several French publications, left India, saying she felt Was forced to do so by the Government of India.

In Dougnac’s own words, the Modi government had accused him of engaging in “malicious” reporting and violating rules, which he had mentioned in his statement announcing his departure from the country.

Dias wrote in his post, “We were also told that due to the instructions of the Indian Ministry, my electoral recognition would not come. We turned out on the first day of voting in a national election that Modi calls the “mother of democracy.”

The action against Dias was reportedly a result of his reporting on the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of organizing, leading to an intense diplomatic standoff between the two countries. Was born.