Srinagar: A female journalist from Kashmir on Thursday (July 24) approached the Press Council of India (PCI) among other media advocacy groups after she and at least four other journalists were allegedly roughly handled a day earlier by doctors who were protesting outside a hospital in Srinagar.

Terming the incident a violation of media rights and “a direct affront” to the dignity and safety of journalists in Kashmir, the reporter, Sufi Hidaya, who works with a Srinagar-based local news portal, has urged the PCI, the Editors' Guild of India and the Network of Women in Media India to raise the issue with the Jammu and Kashmir government and demand disciplinary action against the accused doctors.

“Despite identifying myself as a journalist on duty, I was treated with hostility and aggression, with absolutely no regard for the freedom of the press or my personal safety. What makes this more disturbing is that the attack seemed gendered and targeted. I was not just obstructed in my work, but also humiliated and intimidated in full public view,” she wrote in her letter.

Hidaya, who is pursuing a course in digital media from a government college in Kashmir, has urged the press bodies to condemn “such attacks on media persons, especially women” and order an independent inquiry.

She has called for a “broader reminder to institutions regarding the protection of journalists’ rights, especially during high-tension coverage”.

“The press cannot function under fear and intimidation. I urge the Council to treat this matter with the seriousness it demands and help ensure that no journalist, male or female, faces such misconduct while performing their duty,” she wrote in her letter.

The other journalists mentioned in the letter have been identified as Firdous Qadri, Manzoor Dar, Javaid Pathaan, Rizwan Hameed and Arif, all of whom work with local newspapers and digital media outlets.

The incident took place outside the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital in Srinagar on Wednesday, where a group of doctors had staged a protest against the assault on one of their colleagues by the attendant of a patient who died at the hospital the previous night amid allegations of medical negligence.

The assault was captured by a CCTV camera. The footage shows the accused, identified as Srinagar resident Abid Hussain Bhat, dashing into a hospital ward full of patients and their attendants.

It also shows Bhat, the deceased patient’s brother-in-law, heading straight to Dr Shahnawaz, a resident doctor at SMHS hospital who hails from Uttar Pradesh and is reportedly physically challenged, and slapping him hard across his left cheek, due to which the doctor collapses on the floor.

Bhat alleged that the doctor didn’t treat his brother-in-law with the urgency and promptness expected of doctors in such cases.

“I pleaded with him two or three times to have a look at him. However, he just prescribed some medicines and asked me to fetch them. My brother-in-law was pleading for oxygen as he was feeling suffocated, but the doctor didn’t care. When I returned, he was dead,” Bhat said.

Shahnawaz claimed that the patient had no vitals when he was brought to the hospital’s emergency ward at around 12:15 on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, after which he was referred to the triage department for resuscitation.

“His vitals were ‘non-recordable’ and the doctors at the triage department declared him dead after attempting resuscitation for ten to 15 minutes,” he said.

On Wednesday, a group of SHMS doctors, interns and other staff of the Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar and its associated hospitals staged a protest outside the hospital premises to demand action against Bhat.

Speaking with The Wire, Hidayah said that she was covering the protest and doing her professional duties when a group of protesting doctors surrounded her outside the hospital and asked her to leave.

While new rules have restricted access to medical facilities for journalists on work assignments, the protest in question was taking place in the lawns of the SMHS hospital.

“I told them that I was only doing my duty, but they tried to pull my clothes and forced me to leave. One of them shouted that the media should get out of here. They called us unprofessional and even prevented patients from speaking with us,” she said.

A video clip of the incident shows more than a dozen agitated males surrounding Hidaya outside the hospital, with a green signboard labelled ‘Casualty’ visible at some distance away in the background.

A young male who could not be identified immediately can be seen touching Hidaya with his right hand before withdrawing quickly, while the principal of GMC Srinagar, Dr Iffat Hassan Shah, the only other female in the crowd who was trying to pacify the protesting doctors, is seen grabbing the young journalist’s arm and pulling her out.

Despite repeated attempts, Shah could not be reached for comment.

Hidaya said that she was also physically pushed by the doctors who were standing behind her at the time of the incident, which was not recorded on camera.

“They manhandled me physically, degraded me verbally and harassed me. The incident has shaken me to the core,” she said.

A second video shows one of the protesting medicos grasping the clothes of another local journalist, who manages to push himself out of his grip with the help of a fellow journalist and a policeman and escape from the scene.

A third video shows one of the protesting doctors pushing the policeman and shouting in his face after he had rescued the journalist.

Patient care was briefly disrupted on Wednesday at the SMHS hospital amid reports that the protesting doctors had locked the doors of emergency and other departments.

A tertiary care centre in the Karan Nagar locality of Srinagar, the SHMS hospital is the oldest healthcare facility in Kashmir that caters to thousands of patients every day.

The strike by doctors prompted a brief protest by the attendants of new patients who were turning up on Wednesday and unable to get appointments. The administration, however, denied charges of disruption in patient care.

GMC Srinagar administrator Ashraf Hakak could not be reached for comment on the allegations against the doctors.

In a post on X, GMC Srinagar said that a first information report (No 11/2025) was filed by the Srinagar police on Wednesday.

“Police are handling the matter. Further action will follow. GMC and other hospitals are public assets dedicated to patient care and the healthcare staff working in the hospitals work tirelessly for patient care. We urge patients and attendants to cooperate with healthcare staff,” the post said.

The allegations of rough handling by doctors surfaces at a time when at least three patients have died at government-run hospitals in Kashmir this month allegedly due to medical negligence.

Waheed Para, a People's Democratic Party legislator from Pulwama, where two out of the three deaths were reported, blamed “mismanagement” by the government and doctors' “negligence” for these deaths.

“Within a week, a second death has been reported at Pulwama Hospital due to mismanagement and doctors' negligence. Once a state-of-the-art facility, it now suffers from negligence, defunct machinery, and government apathy,” he posted on X.

The Union territory administration and the government led by chief minister Omar Abdullah have not officially reacted to these allegations.

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