July 18, 2016•Update: July 23, 2016
By Zahid Rafiq
SRINAGAR, Indian-held Kashmir
For a third day, newspapers in Indian-held Kashmir have not hit the stands following a ban by the pro-India government in the region.
The blanket ban on newspapers comes amid a popular uprising to which the Indian authorities have responded by killing at least 42 Kashmiri civilians and wounding over 2,000 people.
The newspapers were banned last Friday after Indian police first raided the printing presses of major Kashmiri newspapers at midnight, confiscating the next days’ printed copies and arresting printers, whom they later released.
A spokesperson for the pro-India government ruling the region, Naeem Akhtar, told the media that it was a “reluctant” decision.
“It is a temporary measure meant to address an extraordinary situation,” Akhtar told an Indian newspaper.
With the region under curfew for the tenth day and with ban on phone and Internet services, the gagging order on the newspaper has completely cut off the flow of information to people. Only word of mouth and Indian news channels feed conversations in the region.
Hilal Mir, editor of the Kashmiri newspaper, Kashmir Reader, told Anadolu Agency: “Compared to [the] grotesquery the Indian state and their forces have unleashed here, the media gag is not a big deal.
“They are used to silencing the Kashmiri media and they have done it again,” Mir added.
“Instead they want the situation to be reported by only the Indian media who look at Kashmir only the prism of ‘national security’ and never question the right of the Indian soldier to be in Kashmir. That is why we have been banned… so the Indian media can report the situation on the ground as they like,” Mir said.
At least 42 Kashmiri civilian protestors have been killed and over 2000 wounded in firing by the Indian armed forces at pro-independence protests triggered by the killing of Kashmiri militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani last Friday.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full.
The two countries have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965 and 1971 – since they were partitioned in 1947, two of which were fought over Kashmir.
Since 1989, Kashmiri resistance groups in the region have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.
More than 70,000 people have reportedly been killed in the conflict so far, most of them in Indian Armed force’s counter-insurgency operations. India maintains more than half a million troops in the disputed regions.
