Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police have warned of action under the stringent anti-terrorism law against social media users involved in disseminating a propaganda video of the Bollywood film Phantom.
In a statement, a police spokesperson said that the-five minute-55-second video showing a poster of Phantom with a photo of Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan was released by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad at 2 pm on Monday, July 22.
Urging the public not to broadcast the video, police warned that disobeying the order would result in action under sections 13 (encouraging or inciting the commission of an illegal activity) and 18 (encouraging or inciting the commission of a terrorist act) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
If convicted under section 18 of the UAPA, a suspect can be imprisoned for life. The recipient of the video “will not forward it in any manner to anyone,” the spokesperson said.
No clarity on reporting mechanism
“Second, they (recipients) will report by a message as to who have they received this propaganda video from. Mention the telephone number and the date and time of the receipt of the video,” the police said.
However, the spokesperson gave no details on how a potential recipient can report the video and to whom, except in the case of government officials, “Any government officer receiving it should equally report it to their supervisory officers by way of a text message,” the spokesperson said.
Directed by Kabir Khan, Phantom is a 2015 Bollywood action thriller starring Katrina Kaif and Saif Ali Khan in the lead roles as executors of a plot by the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s foreign intelligence agency, to avenge the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
In the film, Khan plays Daniyal Khan, an impassive, court-martialled Indian army captain who is pushed by R&AW on a mission to avenge the worst terrorist attack India has faced, in exchange for being reinstated in the army and, consequently, earning the trust and respect of his retired colonel father.
Khan pursues the perpetrators in the USA and Syria before finally landing in Pakistan, where he kills the last two remaining suspects, including Haaris Saeed (an unconcealed reference to Jaish leader Hafiz Saeed), before falling victim to bullets while fleeing over the waters of the Arabian Sea to India after completing the mission.
The warning by J&K police comes in a series of orders imposed by the administration to prevent the circulation of messages on social media which have been dubbed as disruptive by the government.
The police didn’t give out any details about the contents of the propaganda video which has been released at a time when the armed forces are facing a difficult situation in Jammu where nine soldiers and a policeman were killed in back-to-back attacks earlier this month.
Spate of attacks: VDG’s house targeted in latest strike
Official data shows that 14 militancy-related incidents have been reported in Jammu division in the past three months in which two officers among 10 security personnel and nine pilgrims lost their lives while five militants were also killed during the period. More than four dozen people, including security personnel, suffered injuries in these incidents.
On the morning of July 22, unidentified militants attacked a residential house at Gunda Khawas village of Rajouri which belongs to a member of Village Defence Guard (VDG), a civil militia backed by the government which was reactivated in parts of Jammu and Kashmir in 2022 to act as the ‘first line of defence’ against militancy.
“Terrorists attacked the house of a VDC (VDG) at Gunda, Rajouri at 0310h. A nearby Army column reacted and a firefight ensued. Operations are continuing,” Army’s White Knight Corps said in a post on X.
The purported target of the attack and the VDG member, Parshotam Kumar, was awarded Shaurya Chakra earlier this month by President Draupadi Murmu for showing exemplary courage which led to the killing of a militant in his village.
However, a civilian, who is believed to be a relative of Kumar, was injured in the latest attack.
One militant has been killed in an ongoing gunfight in the area, “An Army soldier was injured in the gunfight and he has been evacuated. A search operation is underway in the area,” a senior police officer said. The identity of the militant has not been disclosed so far.
In April, a VDG member was killed in an attack by militants in Udhampur district of Jammu, which is also the home constituency of Dr Jitendra Singh, member of Lok Sabha and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Since 2021, at least 48 army soldiers have been killed in a wave of targeted attacks on the armed forces and civilians by militants in Jammu division which was declared militancy-free before the Union government bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 and downgraded the erstwhile state into two union territories.
Last week, J&K’s lieutenant governor Manoj Singh and the Indian army chief General Upendra Dwivedi reviewed the security situation in the union territory amid reports that an additional 3000 troops and 500 para commandos were being deployed to launch a major operation against militants in Jammu.
