NEW DELHI: Media associations in India have written to the country's top court seeking protection against what they see as intimidation and highhandedness by law enforcement agencies after police raids on a news website.

Indian police this week raided digital media site NewsClick's offices and homes of dozens of journalists, writers, employees and others thought to be connected with the portal over suspected foreign funding and "Chinese propaganda".

Eighteen media organisations in a joint letter addressed to Supreme Court chief justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the judiciary to intervene to defend press freedom.

"The fact is that today, a large section of journalists in India finds itself working under the threat of reprisal," they said.

The letter said "the country's investigating agencies have been misused and weaponised against the Press" and sedition and terrorism cases have been filed against editors and reporters to harass them.

"Our fear is that state actions against the media have been taken beyond measure, and should they be allowed to continue in the direction they are headed, it may be too late for corrective or remedial steps," it reads.

The media groups, including the Press Club of India, Digipub News India Foundation, Delhi Union of Journalists and the Mumbai Press Club, asked the higher judiciary to intervene "to put an end to the increasingly repressive use of investigating agencies against the media".

Hundreds of journalists and civil society groups held demonstrations in New Delhi on Wednesday against the raids a day earlier.

NewsClick in a statement denied it received illegal foreign funding, or promoted Chinese propaganda.

"All funding received by Newsclick has been through the appropriate banking channels and have been reported to the relevant authorities as required by law," the statement said.

"Newsclick does not publish any news or information at the behest of any Chinese entity or authority, directly or indirectly," it said, asserting that all its content is available on the internet and can be viewed by anyone.

The website's 76-year-old editor Prabir Purkayastha and one employee have been arrested and a number of electronic devices seized.

-- BERNAMA