SIA conducts raids on Kashmir Times office in Jammu
Jammu:The New Delhi-controlled State Investigation Agency (SIA) carried out a raid at the Kashmir Times office in Jammu city of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the SIA has registered a First Information Report (FIR) naming prominent journalist and writer Anuradha Bhasin, Editor of Kashmir Times, accusing her of championing the UN-acknowledged plebiscite in Kashmir and engaging in anti-India activities. The FIR claims the newspaper published reports highlighting human rights violations and political injustices in the territory.
In an apparent bid to silence her voice and truth-based journalism, the agency has attempted to link her professional work with activities it alleges “threaten the sovereignty” of India, officials claimed.
Bhasin is a strong critic of the BJP’s Hindutva-driven, anti-Kashmiri policies and had sharply criticised the Modi government for the illegal abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A in August 2019.
Anuradha Bhasin in her statement called on the authorities to cease their activities against the news agency and termed the accusations made by the FIR as “baseless”. She stressed that “criticising the government is not the same as being inimical to the state”.
She asserted that Kashmir Times — in circulation since 1954 — had always stood as a “pillar of independent journalism” and said that she was being targeted because of her work. She alleged that the accusations against her were an attempt “to intimidate, to delegitimise, and ultimately to silence.”
The editor called upon the authorities to immediately cease this harassment, withdraw these unfounded allegations, and respect the constitutional guarantees of press freedom,” she said, calling on the media fraternity to stand with her.
Vowing to continue her operation, the editor stressed that “journalism is not a crime; the state may have the power to raid her offices, but it cannot raid her commitment to the truth”.
In 2020, the IIOJK administration sealed the offices of Kashmir Times “without any due process of cancellation and eviction”, the editor recalled.
The media has always been tightly controlled in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Under incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi, press freedoms in India have steadily shrunk since he was first elected in 2014.
In 2020, India was ranked 142nd in the global press freedom index by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, below Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.
