Govt closure of prominent Kashmiri newspaper office condemned
An international press freedom organization on Tuesday condemned authorities in Jammu and Kashmir for closing the Srinagar office of the Kashmir Times (KT), a leading English daily and one of the oldest newspapers in the valley.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged the local government to stop trying to silence “independent and critical voices” after the paper’s premises were shut down.
In a tweet, the CPJ said: “We condemn the ongoing targeting and harassment of @AnuradhaBhasin_ (the newspaper’s editor) and the Kashmir Times. Authorities must stop trying to silence independent and critical voices and should respect press freedom.”
Bhasin told Arab News that authorities sealed the KT’s office without giving any prior notice. “Without following any due process or serving any eviction notice, estate department officials came (on Monday) and asked the
people working inside to come out and locked the office with our entire infrastructure. This was done without any office and order,” she said.
The journalist was recently evicted from her government-allotted residence in Hindu-majority Jammu in a similar fashion. “The administration not only evicted me without any notice but handed over my belongings to a new allotted,” she added.
Local officials, however, said that “proper procedure” had been followed before shutting down the KT’s office.
“The building that we sealed was in the name of Ved Bhasin (late journalist and KT editor), and he expired four years ago,” an official – who wished to remain anonymous – in charge of the government building in Srinagar Estate Office told Arab News on Tuesday.
“Since this building was allotted in someone else’s name, the government canceled the allotment in the normal process. We served the notice in July and it is not an abrupt sealing,” he said.
The KT’s closure followed a similar incident on Saturday when the local administration sealed the office of a leading news agency of the region, the Kashmir News Service (KNS). Ishfaq Tantray, secretary-general of the Srinagar-based Kashmir Press Club (KPC), described the move as a government “attack” on the valley’s media. “The actions are a clear vendetta against independent journalists and media houses. They don’t want media and independent voices to function freely.”
Bhasin is not new to turmoil and has been at loggerheads with the government since August last year when she challenged a communication blockade and media gag issued by the authorities, in the Supreme Court, after the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status on Aug. 5.