The Indian government has frozen bank accounts of Greenpeace after accusing the international environment campaign group of encouraging “anti-development” protests in the emerging economic power.

The Union Home Ministry on Thursday suspended the official registration for foreign funding of Greenpeace India for six months and froze seven bank accounts connected with the organisation, The Hindu, a local newspaper, reported.

Samit Aich, the executive director of Greenpeace, said the move was “an attack on democracy”.

“They don’t like the questions we are raising. We are environmental activists asking questions about the environment. There has been intimidation, illegal attacks for some time now,” he said.

Campaigners believe that authorities have been upset by campaigns to highlight the environmental consequences of India’s increasing use of coal to generate massive amounts of power needed by the growing economy.

“We have evidence to prove that Greenpeace has been misreporting their funds and using their unaccounted foreign aid to stall crucial development projects,” a senior government official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Aich said the group was waiting to see the exact charges against them but was confident it would be able to rebut them all.

The exact trigger for the move is unclear.

The Hindu quoted a Ministry of Home Affairs official saying that one reason for the new moves this week was the invitation last year from the British parliament to Greenpeace India to “testify against the Indian government”.

In January a Greenpeace campaigner was stopped by Indian officials from travelling to the UK to deliver a talk to MPs about the impact of mining on a poor communities and the environment in central India.

Government agencies had also found that “in the past couple of years, several UK nationals, including cyber experts and activists, had visited Greenpeace’s offices in India allegedly to help it organise protest activities”, the newspaper said.

In January the Indian government was told by judges to unblock funds received by Greenpeace which have been frozen by authorities since June.

The high court in Delhi, the capital, ruled that the previous freeze on funds that Greenpeace India had received from abroad was “arbitrarily illegal” and “unconstitutional”.

Over the past year, there have been a series of measures targeting Greenpeace and several other international NGOs working on similar environmental issues in India.



An intelligence report prepared for the incoming government of Narendra Modi, which took power after a landslide electoral win in May, accused several foreign-funded NGOs of stalling major infrastructure projects at the behest of unidentified foreign powers.



The report, which was leaked to the press, claimed that “people-centric” campaigns organised by NGOs blocked projects in seven sectors – nuclear power, uranium mining, thermal and hydroelectric power, farm biotechnology, extractive industries, and mega industrial projects – were aimed at keeping India in “a state of underdevelopment”.



In June, the government barred Greenpeace from receiving funds from Greenpeace International and Climate Works Foundation – some 30% of its funding. The remaining 70% is raised from local supporters in India. About £180,000 was frozen, before courts ordered its release.



Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, had complained that foreign-funded NGOs were blocking the expansion of nuclear power and the introduction of genetically modified products.