An affidavit by Kashmir Times editor in-chief Prabodh Jamwal in the Supreme Court has alleged that journalists who were filing reports from the media centre in Srinagar were being told to 'furnish information' about the persons they were calling on the phone and the information they were sending 'as news item' using the internet connection.
The affidavit by Jamwal is in addition to an earlier petition by the Kashmir Times executive editor Anuradha Bhasin, who had moved court against the “strict restrictions on freedom of movement of journalists and media personnel in Kashmir”.
In the last hearing, the Chief Justice-led bench had allowed the Centre seven days to respond to Bhasin's allegations.
The details in the fresh affidavit came after Jamwal visited Srinagar between August 28 and August 31. His objective, he said, was to meet his colleagues in Srinagar and have a first-hand experience of the existing communication blockade. The “information blackhole around the rural areas and other districts of Kashmir” continues, he said.
“Unfortunately, even in the media centre, people were filing their report under the prying eyes of the intelligence or the security people who were present there throughout the day,” Jamwal wrote. “They were keeping a tab on each and everything.”
Since the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, Kashmir was under a lockdown and all communication lines were snapped. About 15 days later, the government set up a media centre in a hotel called R.K. Sarovar Portico in Srinagar. It is perhaps the only place where journalists get access to internet, and a slow one, to file their reports.
For all the journalists present, about 50 to 100 on any evening, there are four computers, one mobile phone with no internet and a slow broadband internet service at the media centre, the affidavit said. The news reports being filed were constantly monitored. “Alarmingly, at this media centre, government officials are scrutinising the email communications of journalists. Every journalist is expected to furnish information about the person being called on the phone and the information to be sent as news item,” the affidavit said.
In his conversations with journalists, Jamwal said he had found out that local journalists were being discriminated against by government officials. He claimed that journalists from national or international media are allowed to attend certain news briefings that the local journalists were not called to attend. “In certain cases, I can’t name the journalists for their safety, they were asked to show their footage or photographs that they were going to send. The department of information refused to say anything on record,” Jamwal said.
Jamwal also said that he was told about several instances when photographs and videos shot by journalists were “forcefully deleted” or shown to forces to allow them through a check-point.
The affidavit further mentioned that certain areas were off limits to journalists, especially downtown Srinagar which is considered sensitive. It also said that local journalists who commute on their motorbikes are “routinely harassed at security check-points” and at times their bikes are seized.
Jamwal claimed that he was denied entry to downtown parts and was witness to two such bike seizures when he was travelling with a local journalist.
He said that his paper's Kashmir edition has not been published since August 5.The affidavit claimed that the staffers cannot commute to the printing press because only journalists have movement passes, not technical staff. “This fear is generating a chilling effect on journalists, who have to be very careful not to annoy the authorities and security forces with their reportage,” the affidavit said.
Jamwal could meet about half a dozen of his Kashmir Times colleagues and has no information about his staff living on the outskirts of Srinagar or in other regions of Kashmir still under lockdown.
He said that in his 36 years of journalism, he had never stopped travelling to Kashmir. “I think the situation today is perhaps the worst in my career. Even in the 90s, we at least had access to landline phones. We could get connected to those who had telephones,” Jamwal said. “The fear factor today is so high that nobody wants to come on record about anything on what is happening within Kashmir.”