International Desk: India have been raided by tax department officials, just weeks after the release of a documentary critical of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, which was later blocked by the government.

According to those working at the broadcaster, more than a dozen officials from the country’s income tax department turned up at the BBC offices in Delhi, where hundreds of employees are based, to conduct a “survey”. Documents and phones of several journalists were taken and the offices were sealed.

Officers told local media the searches on Tuesday morning were part of a “tax evasion” investigation into the business operations of the BBC in India and several accounts and financial files were seized.

The BBC confirmed the raids at the offices and said it was fully cooperating. “We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible,” said the statement.

The raids come as the BBC is at the centre of a controversy in India over a two-part documentary series, India: The Modi Question, which focused on the role that Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat, played in violent Hindu-Muslim riots that ripped through his state in 2002 and left more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

Modi has been haunted for years by allegations of his complicity in the violence, and they led to him being banned from the US for almost a decade. The BBC documentary revealed that a British government document from the time had found Modi “directly responsible” for not stopping the killings of Muslims during the riots, and said the violence had “all the hallmarks of genocide”. so herojom fa