LONDON - India’s right-wing government has used emergency powers to block the airing of a BBC documentary which questions Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Calling the two-part BBC film, India: The Modi Question, a “propaganda piece”, the government ordered Twitter to take down more than 50 tweets linking to the documentary while YouTube was instructed to block any video uploads.

A screening of the documentary at one of India’s premier universities on Tuesday was disrupted by the authorities, who allegedly cut the power and internet lines to the office of the students’ union which had organised the event.

India media reports said stones were thrown at students watching the film. Similar screenings were also reported from other parts of the country, while opposition leaders, journalists and activists continue to share links to the BBC documentary on social media to defy the government order.

The 59-minute documentary alleges that Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat at the time, ordered the police to turn a blind eye to the violence that went on for days.

The film cites a previously classified British foreign ministry report quoting unnamed sources saying that Modi met senior police officers and “ordered them not to intervene” in the attacks on Muslims.

It also said the violence was “politically motivated” and the aim “was to purge Muslims from Hindu areas”.

The riots were impossible “without the climate of impunity created by the state government … Narendra Modi is directly responsible”, it concluded.