Thursday November 24, 2022, marked another grim chapter in the unending saga of harassment of Kashmir Reader newspaper, whose Editor-in-Chief, Haji Hayat Mohammad Bhat, was detained by the police after a raid on his Pampore residence in the early hours of the morning. His personal devices such as mobile phone, laptop, and bank documents were seized by the police. Another raid on the same day took place at the Kashmir Reader office in Srinagar. In the name of “questioning”, police kept Haji Hayat at Shergarhi Police Station in Srinagar for the entire day and summoned him again the next morning. It is what the police have been doing with several other journalists in recent days in the name of investigation into an online threat to journalists by a militant group, but Kashmir Reader is a particular target for which the authorities have only found a new excuse.
Ever since the ban imposed on publication of Kashmir Reader in October 2016, a ban that was declared without any specific reason and without giving any opportunity to defend or contest, there seems to be a witch-hunting exercise afoot in which the authorities are employing every means at their disposal to force the newspaper to shut down. What is the reason for this, we fail to understand. The newspaper has always been doing its work fairly, without fear or favour. It has done its basic journalistic duty to report on current events and situations. The newspaper’s coverage reflects the ground situation that prevails in the valley, when it was quaking with unrest a few years ago and when it is calm and relatively normal as it is now. The newspaper has been giving due space to the government’s work, with a conscious effort to highlight government’s public-welfare schemes and programmes. Despite this, the persistent hounding of the newspaper has now come down to raids on the house and office of its Editor-in-Chief and daily summons to the police station.
These attacks, both overt and covert, mounted from the high offices of authority have worn down the resources of this newspaper, so much so that it is now on the verge of closure with staff laid off, revenues negligible, and print-run dwindling. And yet we refuse to just give up and shut operations, for we are committed to a higher mission of duty, of professional calling, a belief in honesty and fair play, which is why we must raise our voice, here and now, against this latest attack and call it out for what it is: harassment, plain and simple. There is nothing that we have to hide, we are open to every investigation but we cannot answer questions that are not asked, defend charges that are not levelled, put up with a so-called investigation that is investigating nothing but only twisting the knife, as it were, already plunged into a journalistic enterprise that is being bled of resources, support and energy.
At the same time, we call out the online threat and labelling of journalists by a militant group, forcing many to quit their organisations in fear of their lives. It is a sad moment for us all that this particular incident has not united the journalist fraternity to forcefully call out the militants for endangering our lives. Already, the media has borne the brunt of armed militancy and lost 19 journalists in the last three decades. The latest threat by the dubious blog operated and run from across the border, according to police, by Lashkar-e-Toiba’s offshoot The Resistance Front, is a grim reminder of how people across the border are not comfortable with the work we do in the Valley.
The assurance from Director General of Police Dilbag Singh to not allow militants to scare the journalist community is encouraging for us. But the latest example of raids and questioning of journalists does not augur well with the assurance. Therefore, we request the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and the higher-ups to let the newspaper do its work. The tactics of harassment and intimidation are unwarranted, undeserved. This has gone on for too long, for no reason.

KR Desk