India Bleeding Kashmir Media

Kashmiri journalist in hospital after police beating

By Altaf Hussain BBC News, Srinagar

  

The authorities have been enforcing a curfew for weeks

A prominent video journalist has been admitted to hospital in Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir after being severely beaten by police.

Merajuddin, who works as a cameraman for APTN, was hit with a baton in the neck and fell unconscious. Police also beat his son and colleague, Omar Meraj.
There have been a number of such attacks on local journalists recently.
The authorities have declared a curfew following violent anti-India protests in which scores have died since June.
The two journalists had been heading to the state assembly in Srinagar when they were stopped by police, who refused to let them pass despite their having curfew passes.
When Merajuddin insisted on speaking to their officer, the policemen became angry and beat him.
The assault happened while Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was apologising in the assembly for the seizure of newspapers by the police in Srinagar on Friday morning.
He told members the police had seized the newspapers without his knowledge.
The media is under increasing pressure in the state.
One senior journalist, Sheikh Mushtaq, said: "We have never felt so insecure as now. We not only face a threat to our lives but are also humiliated off and on."

Police accused of beating AP reporters in Kashmir

(AP) – 5 hours ago

SRINAGAR, India — Two Associated Press journalists were assaulted by police Friday at a roadblock in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and one was knocked out by blows from rifle butts and batons.
Local journalists have repeatedly complained of harassment and assaults by police during turmoil in the Himalayan territory that has killed more than 100 people since June, most of them demonstrators and bystanders.
With a curfew in place, AP Television News journalists Meraj Uddin Dar and his son, Umar Dar, were stopped at a checkpoint as they drove to work Friday.
Police inspected their identity cards and curfew passes — which are given out by Indian authorities to journalists allowing them to work — and initially refused to let them pass. Officers relented after the reporters protested.
As they began to drive away, police yelled for them to stop. Umar Dar said he got out of the car to complain and a police officer slapped him. After Meraj Uddin Dar left the vehicle, officers beat him unconscious with fists, rifle butts and batons, Umar Dar said.
Another journalist at the scene called a police commander, who took the men to a hospital.
Meraj Uddin Dar was admitted with neck injuries and underwent neurological tests.
Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the incident was being investigated.
Reporters Without Borders reported in July that Indian paramilitary forces beat up 12 journalists covering a demonstration. Reporter Mark Magnier with the Los Angeles Times and Riyaz Masroor of the BBC were assaulted by security forces during a separate incident, the media rights group said.
Ghulam Hassan Kaloo, president of the Kashmir Press Association, said his group called an emergency meeting for Saturday. "The police confiscated copies of almost all newspapers early today. Now they have beaten our colleagues as well. This is alarming," he said.

Don’t bleed Kashmir press

Kashmir on Friday witnessed a twin attack on press freedom. J&K Police yet again seized all the newspapers as printing machines cranked them out in the wee hours of a sternly curfewed Friday. In recent months the seizure and harassment of hawkers was too frequent to be ignored.

However chief minister’s response to such undemocratic practice came only after some MLAs prompted him in legislative assembly that is in session. The chief minister was quick to apologize and sought ‘report’ from his Police Chief but the gesture was soon mocked by yet another attack on the press fraternity. The policemen nearly killed the senior most photo journalist Me’rajudin and his son, also a journalist, when both were on way to Legislative Assembly to cover the ongoing autumn session. Throughout these hundred days, Kashmir’s vernacular press and local journalists have been suffering in variety of ways due to unwritten, invisible gag orders. Harassing newspaper staff, disrespecting curfew passes that are issued by district magistrate, beating of field reporters and photographers, intimidating reporters through FIRs are some visible excesses suffered by Kashmir media. Routine abuses, insulting remarks and choicest invectives by cops on streets are so rampant that quantifying them would take a fat book. When quizzed, most of the Police officers attribute this gag policy to the ‘top bosses’, using the worn out cliché Upar se Order hai. The deliberate indifference of the government, particularly the information department, only adds insult to the injury. Friday’s undemocratic act cannot be cast aside as yet another stray mistake by the stressed out Police. The government cannot hide behind the pretext of precautionary measures post Babri Masjid verdict. The verdict did not entail press gag in UP, Delhi or Maharashtra, why in Kashmir? Censoring newspapers and beating newsmen, particularly when the situation shows signs of improvement, points to only two things: lack of command on law enforcing agencies or a racist policy to muzzle Kashmiri press. If the later is true, the biggest irony is that a Kashmiri chief minister is presiding over the actions that bring disrepute not just to the chief minsiter’s person but to the Indian state and her global acclaim as the world’s largest democracy. Apart from heading the coalition cabinet Omar Abdullah is J&K’s home minister as well as information minister. He should come clean on a coercive information policy his government has adopted post June 11. Kashmir press should be restored with dignity if the authorities really want to restore peace and order.