Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir is one of the most dangerous places of the world where people associated with the press and media are per-forming their professional duties in the most difficult circumstances.
According to a report compiled by Kashmir Media Service Editor, Raies Ahmed Mir, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, today, twenty journalists have been confirmed killed while performing their duties during the Kashmiris’ ongo-ing liberation struggle since 1989. They include Shabbir Ahmed Dar, Mushtaq Ali, Muhammad Shaban Wakeel, a woman scribe Aasiya Jeelani, Ghulam Muhammad Lone, Ghulam Rasool Azad, Pervez Muhammad Sultan, Shujaat Bukhari, Ali Muhammad Mahajan, Syed Ghulam Nabi, Altaf Ahmed Fakhtoo, Saidan Shafi, Tariq Ahmed, Abdul Majid Butt, Javed Ahmed Mir, PN Handoo, Mu-hammad Shafi, Pradeeep Bhatia, Ashok Sodhi and Rayees Ahmad Butt.
The report pointed out that the journalists face manhandling, abductions, murder attempts, harass-ment, detentions, summoning to police station and death threats by Indian Army, police and other agencies almost routinely in the territory. It said that in the occupied territory, almost routinely, the jour-nalists face manhandling, abductions, murder at-tempts and death threats by the Indian troops and all this has made their everyday work extremely diffi-cult. It revealed that the Kashmiri journalists and many other scribes while performing their profes-sional duties are roughed up, injured and detained by the troops on fake charges in the territory.
Indian police and sleuths of National Investiga-tion Agency (NIA) arrested photojournalists, Kamran Yousuf, on 04 March 2017, Aqib Javeed on 02 July 2019, Khalid Gul on 06 December, 2022, and Manan Gulzar Dar on 10 October, 2021, for highlighting the brutalities of the Indian troops during the pro-freedom demonstrations in the territory. They were later released after long detentions. Another journalist Qazi Shibli was booked under black law, Public Safety Act (PSA) on 08 August 2019 and was released on 23 April 2020. Other journalists including Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, Sajjad Gul, Sartaj Altaf Butt and Irfan Meraaj are still facing illegal detentions in different jails of India and IIOJK.—KMS
