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03-09-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI/ SRINAGAR: Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have “strongly objected” to an article published by the BBC on press freedom in the Muslim-majority region and have threatened to take legal action for “unfairly castigating” its work.
The report by the British broadcaster, headlined “Any story could be your last” – India’s crackdown on Kashmir press, was published on Friday and highlights the case of several Kashmiri journalists incarcerated on “terrorism” charges, under which bail is difficult to get. The report also documents the day-to-day harassment and intimidation other journalists have faced from security forces.
“The article unfairly castigates efforts of J&K Police in maintaining law and order and security in J&K as biased against journalists,” the Jammu and Kashmir Police said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The police “condemned” the attempt by the BBC to misrepresent the situation on the ground, adding that it maintains “the highest standards of professionalism”.
The yearlong investigation by the BBC was published just weeks after an independent Kashmiri news outlet, The Kashmir Walla, said Indian authorities had blocked access to its website.
A number of Kashmiri journalists have been arrested, questioned and investigated in relation to their work since India’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped the region’s semi-autonomous status in 2019 as part of its efforts to integrate the disputed territory into the rest of the country.
Anti-India sentiment runs high in the Himalayan region, which has seen a bloody rebellion since the late 1980s. The rebels either want Kashmir to be independent or merged into neighboring Pakistan.
India has accused Pakistan of backing the rebels, a charge Islamabad has denied.
New Delhi says its unprecedented action in 2019 was aimed at rooting out “terrorism” from the territory, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Each of the two arch-foes administer parts of it. They have fought two of their three wars over the region since gaining independence from the British in 1947.
The BBC said its reporter spoke to more than two dozen Kashmir journalists for the article. They included editors and reporters working for independent and national media organizations.
“The BBC has spent more than a year investigating accusations against the Indian government that it is running a sinister and systematic campaign to intimidate and silence the press in the region,” the broadcaster said.
