Jalandhar, Panjab-based media group Punjab Kesari has written to Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann saying that between 11–14 Jan enforcement authorities have raided its offices and hotels, and delayed its flagship newspapers Punjab Kesari (Hindi) and Jag Bani (Panjabi) from reaching its readers. The letter said the raids were conducted after a 'balanced and fair' news report on opposition allegations against the ruling AAP's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal appeared on 31 Oct 2025 in their newspaper. The letter pointed out that since 2 Nov 2025, the government has stopped all advertisements to the group; with these raids targeted the group and its associate concerns 'with an extraneous motive to intimidate the press.' Opposition parties in Panjab said the AAP government was using state power to muzzle the press. The Press Club of Chandigarh has expressed solidarity with the media group. The Panjab government said that the action was based on serious and documented violations detected by statutory authorities. On 20 Jan, the Supreme Court of India ordered the Panjab government to not ‘close the newspaper.’ Earlier, in May 2024, the Panjab government had targeted Barjinder Singh Hamdard, Editor-in-Chief of Ajit Group, by initiating a Vigilance Bureau probe for alleged irregularities of USD 34M in the Jang-e-Azadi Memorial construction, leading to accusations of political vendetta, cessation of government advertisements, and protests by opposition parties. By October 2024, Kejriwal had reached out to Hamdard and the newspaper had started getting newspaper advertisements. Meanwhile, on 19 Jan, citing copyright infringement, the Panjab government managed to get a popular YouTube news channel Lok Awaz TV’s Facebook page blocked. The action followed after the channel’s report debunked CM Mann’s tall claims of improvement in road networks showing the reality of faulty road construction and alleging corruption in the projects. Concurrently, CM Mann and Panjab Industries Minister Sanjeev Arora are facing difficulties in getting travel visas to UK and Israel, countries they wanted to visit with their delegation to attract foreign funding to Panjab. Panjab AAP General Secretary and party’s Media In-charge Baltej Singh Pannu said the union government has given no reason for the denial (earlier coverage).
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