Summons To Journalists In Kashmir Evoke Widespread Outrage

The Jammu and Kashmir Police have summoned journalists over reports that appeared in a section of the press on the profiling of mosques, which was being carried out across Kashmir, with the security officials asking the clerics to share information about their financial details as well as the sect that they belonged to.

The Indian Express newspaper has confirmed that its Assistant Editor in Kashmir, Basharat Masood, was summoned by police and asked to sign a bond not to do anything that would “disturb the peace” in the Union Territory.

The summons came after Masood did a story on the police carrying out profiling of mosques, asking clerics to submit details, including their contact information and financial records. The police have not released any statement on the issue, but security has generally been stepped up across Kashmir to prevent militant attacks. In the past, however, what has also raised security concerns was the involvement of some mosque clerics in militant activities. Routine questioning of clerics has been common even before the revocation of Article 370, but the scale at which the information about clerics has been sought this time has also drawn political outrage.

Journalists working in Kashmir say the media should be allowed to perform its professional duties and spared from curbs on factual reporting. A journalist working for a national newspaper, who was also called for questioning, however, says that he did not go to the police station and had thought he was called for a press conference. “It is difficult to operate under the circumstances when routine reporting is also being questioned,” he says.

The Editors Guild of India has said that the summons to journalists were meant to intimidate them. “Arbitrary summons and police questioning of journalists, and bids to obtain affidavits under duress, are tantamount to coercion and intimidation of the media in pursuit of its legitimate duties. This is just the latest instance of increasingly threatening, intimidatory, and coercive actions taken against professional journalists by the Kashmir police. Innumerable instances of journalists being summoned and questioned by the police have been reported in the past,” the EGI said in a statement.

Political parties in Kashmir have come down heavily on authorities for asking clerics to submit forms about their antecedents and financial details. The summons to the journalists have also drawn outrage, with the politicians shifting blame.

In Kashmir, the local press has often been in the crosshairs of the investigating agencies, but after the revocation of Article 370, correspondents of national media have also been questioned over their reporting on Kashmir.

On the information being sought from clerics, former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party leader, Mehbooba Mufti, earlier said that the mosques should not have been singled out in the profiling, and details should have also been collected from the temples and other religious institutions. Opposition parties have slammed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, saying that he has been less vocal on these issues.

Mehbooba’s daughter, Iltija Mufti, said in a social media post, “Kashmiri journalists working for national newspapers are now forcibly being made to sign bonds as a punishment for throwing light on the illegal punitive surveillance of mosques and imams. Yet not a word from the NC government or the CM who was elected to fight against this very brutal assault on J&K. For how long will they whitewash GOIs ill-conceived policies? NC's appeasement comes at the price of the freedom & dignity of every resident of J&K. Lest they forget.”

The ruling National Conference has, however, condemned both the profiling of mosques and the action against journalists, saying that the police were controlled by the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha. Former journalist and National Conference spokesperson, Imran Nabi Dar, says that the action to summon the journalists was uncalled for. “This is unacceptable to us that the voice of the free press in a democratic system is being muzzled. People are being questioned for factual reporting. We have said that this would not be tolerated, but the action has come from the police, which is under the control of the Lieutenant Governor.”

Dar, however, says that the action against the journalists first began after the PDP formed the government with the BJP. “The curbs on the free press started after 2016 when a local newspaper was shut down by former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, and she has no right to speak about free press,” he says.

Former journalist and senior Congress leader, Nizam-ud-Din Bhat, says: “It does not look like there is a free press now in Kashmir. The media is required to follow the ethics by ensuring that the views from the other side were also taken into account. Issuing of the summons was never done when we were in the profession in the heyday of militancy.”