Due to pressure from the Hindutva organizations, a Pune-based institute cancelled an award given to Kashmiri journalist, Safina Nabi, on the eve of the ceremony held today.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Safina Nabi was selected for a media award instituted by the journalism school run by the Maharashtra Institute of Technology-World Peace University (MIT-WPU). However, she got a rude shock as her award was cancelled ahead of the ceremony.
The award was cancelled by the university’s management in the face of Hindutva pressure, news portal The Wire reported.
Safina’s report, ‘The half widows of Kashmir’, appearing in Scroll, had been chosen the winner in the category of ‘journalism that promoted empathy, understanding and inclusivity in society’. It highlighted the longstanding plight of the ‘half widows’ of Kashmir – the term used for the Kashmiri women whose husbands have been subjected to custodial disappearance by the Indian troops and police. The reporting for the story was aided by the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting.
Safina’s story was unanimously chosen from dozens of entries by a seven-member jury comprising three members from the institute and four external members, namely Sunanda Mehta, resident editor of The Indian Express, Pune edition, Sandeep Adhwaryu, cartoonist at The Times of India, Sajeev Ratna Singh, head of the journalism school at Bennett University and M.K. Venu, founding editor of The Wire.
Safina had been informed that she had won the award in a phone call from the director, Department of Media & Communication at MIT-WPU Dhiraj Singh, as well as an email from him, on October 11. She received the email.
Safina told The Wire that the institute had made arrangements for her to travel for the award ceremony, and she was supposed to leave on October 17 for Pune. However, on the afternoon of October 16, she received a call from an unknown faculty member who said the award had been cancelled and so she should no longer travel to Pune.—KMS
