Unmasking Misinformation: Fact-Checking Avani Dias’ Claims on Coverage Permission

Avani Dias, the South Asia Correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), recently said that she wasn’t allowed to cover the polls in India. This claim needs to be looked into more closely. In spite of what she says, the way she describes what happened seems to be misleading and not totally true.

Dias said she was not allowed to cover the polls and had to leave the country. Authorities say that when they look more closely, it’s clear that she had problems following the rules for her visa. It was found that she broke the rules about her visa while she was working in India.

Even though she had broken the law, sources say that officials granted her request for a visa extension so that she could cover the general elections.

The visa she had before was going to end on April 20, 2024. Notably, she paid the required visa fees on April 18 and got an extension on her visa the same day, until the end of June. Dias, on the other hand, chose to leave India on April 20, even though she had a valid visa with an accepted extension.

The source mentioned above also said that her claim that she wasn’t allowed to cover the elections was not based on facts.

Permission under journalist visa

People with a journalist visa can cover election events outside of polling places. “Authorization letters are needed to get into polling booths and counting stations, and this process can’t be sped up while a visa extension is being processed,” the source said, adding that Meghna Bali and Som Patidar, two other ABC reporters, already had their letters.

Inaccurate claims

With these explanations, it’s clear that Dias’ claims are not supported by evidence and don’t give a true picture of what happened when she left India. This shows how important it is to check facts and information before coming to a decision.

Background

The Chief of Bureau for Australia’s state-owned news outlet in New Delhi said that she had to leave India quickly because government officials wouldn’t let her get a visa extension. The journalist Avani Dias made this statement after meeting an officer from the Criminal Intelligence Department while working on a show about how the Indian government is allegedly killing pro-Khalistan rebels in other countries.

Dias, who is from Australia, worked as the Bureau Chief for ABC in New Delhi while on a J1 (Journalist) visa. Even though she applied for a visa extension on January 1, it happened at the same time that ABC was showing news about what was happening in Punjab. As a result, she said she was scared and put under pressure by government officials. It became even more heated when YouTube took down an ABC report about the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in 2023, allegedly on orders from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

As part of their investigation into Nijjar’s death, the Australian crew went to his family’s home and talked with members of a Sikh separatist group in Punjab. This led to warnings that they had “crossed a line.” Dias also became famous for her podcast “Looking for Modi,” which looked into how popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi is and claims that dissenting views are being silenced in India.

Government sources said that Dias had paid for her visa extension before she left, and the extension had been given. The circumstances of her departure raised eyebrows. There were also claims that the ABC team broke security rules at the Wagah border and didn’t follow the rules for getting a visa to make a documentary film in India.

The writer, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs, and the Australian High Commission had been talking about extending Dias’ visa. The government said it had promised her a longer visa so she could cover the general elections, which went against what she said about not being able to go.

What she posted on X (formerly Twitter)

“I had to leave India quickly last week.” The Modi Government told me that they would not extend my visa because I “crossed a line” by reporting them. I only got a two-month extension after the Australian Government stepped in, which was less than 24 hours before my trip. “They also told us that my election credentials would not go through because of a directive from the Indian Ministry,” Dias wrote on ‘X’.