Srinagar: In the past one week, Kashmir-based newspapers and journalists have blamed the administration for allegedly harassing them, so that only the government’s version about the “ground situation” in Kashmir is carried in the entire media. Since the abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August 2019, journalists have been raising some issues affecting their work. The fresh trigger for the journalists blaming the government was when the counter-insurgency operation group of J&K Police in their Cargo Office, questioned two journalists for a few hours to know about their sources within and outside government.
The Kashmir Press Club (KPC), an umbrella organisation of over a dozen journalist bodies in the valley, has blamed the authorities for trying to, “muzzle free speech”. KPC members told this newspaper that the latest addition in the various forms of intimidation has been summoning journalists to police stations, and forcing them to name their sources inside and outside the government. In the past few days, the KPC even organised protests by Kashmir-based journalists after some of their colleagues were questioned for hours in the “Cargo branch of J&K police”.
Recently, police filed an FIR against JKLF and also summoned two journalists who reported about a strike call given by them in the Kashmir valley. JKLF gave a general strike call along with other separatist organizations, on the death anniversaries of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru and JKLF founder Muhammad Maqbool Bhat, as both of them were hanged in Tihar Jail and their mortal remains were not given to their families.
Kashmir-based journalists are angry with the administration for not allowing them to have free access to internet and to report without curbs from Kashmir. “Since 5 August 2019, we maintained silence over various instances of harassment and intimidation to journalists while reporting from here. They employed various methods, including evictions from the government quarters, to silence many journalists. One of them was even kept under house arrest for 48 hours before evicted from government allotted accommodation,” a senior member of KPC told this reporter.
KPC issued a statement in which it claimed that more than six Kashmiri journalists, including those working for organisations like The Hindu, The Indian Express, and Economic Times, have been recently questioned by J&K police apart from multiple incidents of reporters being allegedly physically attacked by police and security forces during this period of clampdown.
The KPC recently held a detailed meeting in which all its sister organizations participated and slammed the government for “restrictions on internet” and “forcibly seeking undertakings from news organisations, for allowing limited internet access, and constant surveillance by police and physical attacks”.
However, after the protests by journalists, IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar told a New Delhi-based daily newspaper that journalists would be required to appear before police whenever it is required under law.