Amid outrage, police say only one scribe questioned for work

QUOTE: “The remaining two persons have not been booked for any journalistic work of theirs but because of the reason that they have posted explicitly seditious, incendiary and incriminating texts on social media, challenging the sovereignty and integrity of India and attempting to instigate people for violence,” Vijay Kumar, Kashmir IGP

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, April 23

Amid massive outrage over the registration of three FIRs against journalists, the J&K Police on Thursday said “only one journalist” had been questioned and two other “persons” had not been booked for any journalistic work.

The first FIR which the J&K Police recently registered was against woman freelance photojournalist Masrat Zahra. She was booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for allegedly uploading “anti-national posts” on her social media accounts.

An “open FIR” was filed in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district related to “a news story, alleging it was “fake news”, published by Peerzada Ashiq, Kashmir correspondent for The Hindu.

The FIR against senior journalist and author Gowhar Geelani said he was “indulging in unlawful activities” through his posts on the social media platform.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said only one journalist had been questioned about the journalistic work as only one FIR of “instigating” people for violence had been registered over an encounter in Shopian at the Anantnag police station.

“The remaining two persons have not been booked for any journalistic work of theirs but because of the reason that they have posted explicitly seditious, incendiary and incriminating texts on social media, challenging the sovereignty and integrity of India and attempting to instigate people for violence,” Kumar said in a statement.

He said: “The J&K Police has always maintained the highest regard for the freedom of press.”

There has been widespread condemnation of the registration of the FIRs and the demands are growing that the charges against the three journalists be dropped immediately.

The social media is full of messages of solidarity with the three journalists.