Kashmir Valley Under Media Blackout, Police Raids Printing Presses

The protests after Burhan Wani’s death have led to a clampdown of the media and internet services in the valley.

Media persons protesting the information and communication blackout in the Kashmir valley. (Photo: IANS) 

The Kashmir Police on Saturday seized copies of major Urdu and English newspapers in the Kashmir Valley following midnight raids on printing presses, creating an information blackout as mobile services continue to remain suspended.

Journalists at a meeting of newspaper editors and owners termed it “an attack on the freedom of press and vowed to fight back at all costs”.

The journalists said in a statement that they spoke with the government but a spokesman told them that “a strict curfew” will be imposed in the next three days following “apprehensions of a serious trouble aimed at subverting peace” in the Valley.

In this situation, the government spokesman told Srinagar-based editors that the “movement of newspaper staff and distribution of newspapers will not be possible”.

The only mobile service functional in the valley is Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and the only internet connectivity is the BSNL broadband service.

Police arrested the Greater Kashmir Printing Press foreman Biju Chaudary and two other employees, the organisation claimed.

Another English daily, Rising Kashmir, had finished printing its edition and was about to be circulated when some policemen raided its distribution site, it said on its web edition.

As the staff had left after printing the copies, police took into custody all the employees and asked them to identify the distribution site. They later reached press enclave and seized the vehicle along with the driver.

Excerpt from <i>Rising Kashmir</i>

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Abdur Rasheed, the circulation manager at Kashmir Images, told IANS that a police party came in ‘civvies’ and raided the daily’s printing press on the city’s outskirts around 1:30 am on Saturday.

They asked us to stop the printing machine immediately and took away some 1,500 printed copies of an Urdu daily (that prints from the <i>Kashmir Images</i> press).

Abdur Rasheed

Cable TV was snapped on Friday evening. Mobile phone internet connectivity has also been cut in the valley since the 8 July killing of the 22-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani.

(With inputs from IANS.)