Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah now booked under Public Safety Act

Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah has been booked under Public Safety Act (PSA), 37 days after his arrest and receiving bail in two of the three cases filed against him, his lawyer Umair Ronga said on Monday

Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah has been booked under Public Safety Act (PSA), 37 days after his arrest and receiving bail in two of the three cases filed against him, his lawyer Umair Ronga said on Monday. Shah is founder of The Kashmir Walla, a digital magazine and news portal based in Srinagar.

Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah, 33, was first arrested on February 4 by Pulwama police under the charges of sedition.

Ronga in a tweet said that the authorities anticipated that his client might get bail in the third case, like the previous two, and hence he was booked. The bail plea is to be heard on Tuesday.

Under PSA, a person can be jailed without trial from six months to two years on the orders of a district magistrate who acts on the dossiers of police. Calls and messages to deputy commissioner (and district magistrate) Srinagar, Aijaz Asad, didn’t elicit a response.

Ronga said that they will be challenging his PSA detention in court. “We are waiting for details of the grounds of detention. I am planning to go to the Supreme Court,” he said.

Shah was arrested for the third time on March 6 by Srinagar Police in a case registered at Safa Kadal police station, allegedly regarding his reportage of an encounter in May 2020. The Srinagar police had booked him under UAPA, besides Sections 501 (printing or engraving defamatory matter), and 505 (public mischief) of Indian Penal Code, according to his magazine Kashmir Walla.

The Srinagar police had taken his custody from a Shopian police station, hours after a court had granted him bail in the second case filed in January 2021. Shopian police had arrested Shah and taken his custody from the Pulwama police on February 26, hours after being granted bail by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court.

Shah, 33, was first arrested on February 4 by Pulwama police under the charges of sedition.Police say that three separate first information reports (FIRs) were registered against Shah, who runs a news portal and magazine — Kashmiri Walla — in the last four years and accused him of glorifying terrorism, spreading fake news and inciting the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Shah’s family said that the cases were bogus and fake. “After accusing my brother @pzfahad in a string of synthetic, bogus & fake cases, where we bailed him out as per country’s judiciary system. Now Fahad Shah who always reported the truth has been slapped by draconian PSA by the Indian government,” said his brother Aqib Shah in a tweet.

Media in J-K being ‘choked’ due to local administration curbs: PCI fact finding committee

New Delhi (PTI) A three-member Fact Finding Committee (FFC) of the Press Council of India (PCI) has said that news media in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the Valley, is “slowly being choked” due to extensive curbs imposed by the local administration.

The FFC, in its report submitted last week, has also advised the UT administration to immediately stop the “tendency” to see all critical reporting and opinions as “anti-national”. “A conflict zone has many players and many aspects of events that unfold. A journalist cannot and should not ignore the government version; at the same time, he is not the spokesperson of the government,” it said.

Headed by Prakash Dubey (convenor) with members Suman Gupta and Gurbir Singh, the FFC was set up by the PCI -- a statutory quasi-judicial body which acts as a press watchdog -- six months after a complaint by PDP president Mehbooba Mufti in September last year. The report submitted to the council is yet to be considered and adopt