In Kashmir, an editor's arrest sends chills through a shrinking community of journalists
On a Friday earlier this month, nearly half a dozen young reporters and interns of Kashmir Walla, a Srinagar-based news website in Indian-administered Kashmir, were waiting anxiously for their editor to show up.
Fahad Shah, 34, was due to edit the news stories they had filed for the day, so they could leave home before a weekend Covid-19 lockdown kicked in.
But their mood turned into angst in the evening after they learned from social media posts of fellow journalists that Shah had been arrested.
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For the Kashmir Walla team, it was an expected - though dreaded - development. Four days earlier, Shah was summoned for questioning over the portal's coverage of a police raid that left four dead, including a 17-year-old.
The independent news outlet's story, based on interviews with the teen's family, starkly differed from official accounts of the January 30 incident even as they included comments from the police.
It was Kashmir Walla's signature style of hyperlocal reporting that Shah set out to do when he started it in 2009 to "cover political, social and cultural dissent within the larger context of the conflict and its contours."
Over the years, it rose to prominence for featuring interviews with locals on counter-militancy operations aimed at rooting out rebels seeking to defy Indian rule.
New Delhi has deployed more than a million troops in Kashmir to quell an anti-India insurgency raging for the past 30 years. Rights groups have also accused security forces of misusing a controversial law that gives them wide-ranging powers to search, detain and shoot at civilians.
Both India and Pakistan have claimed all of Kashmir since gaining independence 75 years ago, and have fought two wars over the Himalayan region.
With its strong focus on ground reporting and timely updates, including on the alleged military excesses committed during gunfights between insurgents and Indian troops, Kashmir Walla established itself as a trusted source of news among young, online-savvy Kashmiris. It also has a sizeable social media presence, with 275,000 Facebook and 46,000 Twitter followers.
After Shah's arrest, police said he was among the Facebook users who uploaded "antinational" content with "criminal intention to create fear among the public." They added such content was "tantamount to glorifying the terrorist activities."
"If one of the most popular journalists in Kashmir is not safe, then no one is," said a senior journalist, who declined to be named for safety reasons.
Several journalists have reported instances of arbitrary detention and intimidation since 2019, when New Delhi revoked Kashmir's autonomy, bringing it under direct federal rule.
The government also imposed an internet blockade for more than six months and began subjecting media professionals to mandatory background checks. Authorities were given more powers to prosecute those they deem to be spreading misinformation or fake news. Last June, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression criticised the government for muzzling the press.
"I think we, as a media industry, have hit the wall," a writer working for a local newspaper, requesting anonymity, said.
"Last year, many correspondents working for national and global dailies were summoned and booked under stringent laws. We thought at that time, if this could happen to them, then what about us."
In January, Sajad Gul, a Kashmir Walla contributor, was arrested over "objectionable" social media posts. He was later granted bail but the police subsequently booked him under the harsh Public Safety Act (PSA), which allows the detention of an individual without trial for six months and sent him to the Kot Bhalwal prison in Jammu that is notorious for alleged custodial torture and holds captured militants.
In the same month, the curtains came down on Kashmir's only press club after it was evicted from a government-owned building that housed it.
The club, with over 300 members, had for long served as an important institutional base for Kashmiri journalists.
The Editors Guild of India said it was "aghast at the manner in which the office and the management of Kashmir Press Club ... was forcibly taken over" and accused the state of being "brazenly complicit in this coup."
The shifting red lines for journalists have led some to practice self-censorship and avoid reporting on news that could be controversial, including anti-India boycotts and statements by pro-independence groups.
Shah's arrest has also shaken students studying journalism at two Kashmiri schools who say they're considering not going into the profession at all.
For a journalist, who has been in the industry for seven years, the risks of journalism have only grown exponentially.
"We know the authorities can any time and under any pretext arrest us. You never know which byline may land you in a prison forever."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
