Srinagar: A Jammu and Kashmir district court has refused to provide interim relief to two Kashmiri news portals after an FIR was filed against them based on a “fake news” complaint by the army. The FIR was for running a story on the local army unit “forcing” an Islamic seminary school to hold Republic Day celebrations on January 26 in the Shopian area of south Kashmir.
The FIR was filed in the Imam Sahib area of Shopian under Sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code against two websites – Kashmir Walla and Kashmiriyat – on January 31.
Editor-in-chief of Kashmir Walla, Fahad Shah, through his counsel filed a petition in the district court of Shopian to get interim relief in the case. However, the court denied interim relief to Shah and reporter Yash Raj Sharma in the case lodged against them.
The order passed by the principal sessions court on February 2 says that there is no exceptional reason and sufficient grounds to grant the journalists anticipatory bail in the case.
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The petition filed by the journalist submitted that they were being implicated in a “false and frivolous” case. In their petition, they had said that they were entitled to get anticipatory bail under provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
However the court rejected the petition. “Thus the Id.Counsel for petitioners could not establish prima facie that the petitioners have been falsely implicated in the crime and would not misuse their liberty, for the reasons the prayer for grant of bail is rejected and accordingly the petition being without merit is dismissed,” reads the court order.
Shah, the editor-in-chief of Kashmir Walla, told The Wire, “We stand by our story, which is based on facts and a long interview with the chairman/principal of the institution. If the institution had to refute our news claim, they should have called to us or our reporter.”
“They could have emailed us if they had found that they have been quoted wrong, they could have even issued a statement refuting our claims for which we could have given them space, but unfortunately that did not happen,” he continued.
“Even the Army could have refuted our news claim and issued a statement which ideally happens but in this case, it wasn’t done,” he said.
Shah further alleged that when the police was approached by Indian Army to file an FIR against the journalists, the police did so without taking time to verify the facts. “Did they approach the school or the concerned persons?” he asked.
“Since August 2019 we have been facing FIRs, summons, intimidations and detentions. I see this FIR as a part of the series [of attacks] happening against us for reporting the truth,” Shah said.
On being asked about the clarifications issued by the management of the institution refuting the reports, Shah said there were two statements issued by the institution – one was handwritten and the other one was typed. However, the institution used to send their press releases through emails, but in this case it did not send any press release to the media.
Questioning the role of the Department of Information and Public Relations in Valley, Shah said, “If FIRs are being lodged like this on news items and stories, then who will issue rebuttals or refute the news claims. Tomorrow everybody will start filing FIRs on any news items or stories. Where is the space for journalism then?”
Qazi Shibli, who runs the Kashmiriyat website, has also been booked in the same case. He told The Wire, “Since I am out of town, as of now I have not applied for interim anticipatory bail, but for Fahad the bail has been denied in the case so I will see how to proceed further.”
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Shibli continued that he stands by the report, and has evidence to prove it in court.
Former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on February 12 said on Twitter that speaking truth to power is being deliberately misconstrued as ‘misuse of liberty’. “In Kashmir, journalists report about a school principal forced by army to host a Republic Day function. Days later, a complaint is filed & the court denies them anticipatory bail. We live in times where speaking truth to power is deliberately misconstrued as ‘misuse of liberty’,” she said.
The Kashmir Press Club has also condemned the FIR against the portals and expressed concern over the harassment of journalists and news organisations. “Instead of going ahead with the complaint or the registration of the case, the concerned authorities through a standard procedure should have sought clarification from the news websites in question if at all there was any factual inaccuracy in their stories. But no such procedure was followed and instead a case was filed,” a statement from the group said.
Jahangir Sofi is a Srinagar-based journalist. He tweets at @SofiJahangir3.