Srinagar: In the past few days, three Kashmir-based journalists have been booked by police under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) law, triggering protests from various journalist bodies and showing the growing confrontation between the J&K administration and journalists here.

Talking to many senior journalists in Kashmir on the recent FIRs, more details about the confrontation surfaced. Most of the reporters said that following last year’s lockdown from 5 August, officials in the administration refuse to comment or give any details about any incident.

“Recently, I was doing a story on those families in Srinagar city who were on the verge of being without any food or help. I talked to half a dozen officials to give details how they are feeding such families. There was no response, but only some sketchy details on twitter. I filed the story without official version; I can be also booked,” a local reporter working for a website said. Whenever officials in J&K administration speak, it is always off-the-record, and this trend has resulted in an FIR against The Hindu correspondent, a local from Srinagar, as officials refused to give him any information.

This reporter also faces a lot of difficulties to get any official to be quoted in any story. In connection with FIRs against three journalists, no senior officer has given any comment.

“The devil is in the detail. First, they refuse to give any official confirmation; then they book us for not publishing their version. This dangerous trend should be stopped. The government should nominate an official spokesman and he should be available to all journalists in Kashmir,” a senior journalist told this reporter.

Peerzada Ashiq, correspondent of The Hindu, told police during questioning and even showed to his interrogators screenshots of the questions sent to officials for confirming the news. The newspaper also said that no rejoinder/clarification was received by the newspaper to the prior registration of the FIR either from police or from the information department.

The Kashmir Press Club, in a statement, said: “Police has booked a young and promising female photo-journalist Masrat Zahra under 13 UAPA and 505-IPC. She was summoned to Cyber Police Station, Aircargo, in Srinagar on 18 April. However, after the Kashmir Press Club and Directorate of Information intervened at the highest level, the police dropped the summon.

But now it has emerged that the police has filed a case against her with stringent charges and as per conversation with Zahra, she has been asked to come to the police station concerned.

A local journalist and author Gowhar Geelani, who has been booked under UAPA, has moved court against police action. In his petition, he has requested court to quash the FIR by police against him.

On Friday, the J&K High Court denied interim relief to Geelani and issued a notice to the UT Administration while listing the case for 20 May.

Sunday Guardian