Jammu&Kashmir: The government is choking the media, according to a panel of the Press Council

The Press Council of India’s (PCI) fact-finding committee found that “news media in the Jammu & Kashmir region, particularly in the Valley, is slowly being choked primarily due to the extensive curbs imposed by the local administration.” “There is also the threat of militant violence, which serves as a deterrent,” the committee wrote in its report, which was submitted last week.

After PDP leader and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti wrote to the Council in September 2021, then-PCI Chairman Justice (retd) C K Prasad established the FFC to investigate the state of the media in Jammu and Kashmir. “There is a long list of journalists who have been harassed on a one-to-one basis. The goal is to instil fear and intimidation so that people will follow the government’s lead,” according to the FFC report. The government’s “suspicion that a large number of local journalists are sympathisers of the militants’ cause” has “disrupted normal lines of communication between the local government administration and journalists,” according to the report.

According to the report, Lt Governor Manoj Sinha “frankly told the FFC that many journalists were of ‘anti-national’ persuasion.” “He (Sinha) admitted that he used to encourage open press conferences when he was first appointed, but that he had now reverted to a’selective engagement’ with preferred journalists.”

According to the report, some journalists were “summoned to the dreaded ‘Cargo Centre’ for questioning — a location reserved for interrogation of armed militants.” “The constant harassment they faced in the line of duty from security forces,” many journalists said. These included accusations of assisting “separatists,” lengthy interrogation in police camps, and detention and arrests for spreading “fake news,” according to the report.

According to the police, “as many as 49 journalists have been arrested and charged since 2016,” which is a large number considering J&K’s small press corps. The Kashmir Press Club was “superseded and put in cold storage,” according to the committee, because “there is no convincing reason.” Its registration should be reinstated, and “government officials should not interfere in what is essentially a private body of journalists’ election process,” it stated.

According to the report, Mehbooba Mufti mentioned in her letter to the Press Council that journalists who are summoned by the police are forced to fill out a questionnaire “suggesting that the person might have links with ‘anti-national’ forces.” The journalist’s “political allegiance,” “details of property owned,” and “relations in Pakistan” are among the 25 questions. According to the report, Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar “has no hesitation in admitting that there is a programme to profile journalists working in the J&K region.” “Our goal is to profile 80 percent of Kashmiris, and we will do it for journalists as well,” the officer was quoted as saying.

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