By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net
Srinagar: On Tuesday, September 5, the whole nation was mourning the death of journalist Gauri Lankesh who was shot by some unidentified men at her house in Bangalore. About 3,000 km away north in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, a freelance photojournalist-Kamran Yousuf-was being huddled to Delhi by National Investigation Agency (NIA).
A day before he was asked to report at the local police station from where he was taken to Srinagar, where NIA formally arrested him.
Till now, the premier investigating agency hasn’t issued any press release, a procedure that it usually follows in other cases. The newspapers are abuzz with claims and counterclaims attributed to sources, who say that he was arrested for stone pelting and uploading provocative videos on social networking websites.
Yousuf, a resident of village Tahab, five km from Pulwama town in South Kashmir used to cover the frequent protests by locals, encounters between militants and security forces and funerals of militants who died in the encounters.
“As far as I know, he was not involved in any kind of subversive activity. He was very enthusiastic about his work. He would be first among us to reach and cover the protests,” said Mohammad Iqbal Wani, a journalist who works for a national news channel.
A quick look at his profile on Facebook makes it quite clear that his photographs were frequently published by Valley-based Greater Kashmir newspaper along with his byline.
A day after his arrest when Greater Kashmir hit the stands, nowhere in its 20-page newspaper found the mention of one of its photo journalist who was arrested a day earlier. It did carry a small news titled “NIA arrests 2 ‘for stone pelting’” and didn’t mention the names of those arrested.
The newspaper till date hasn’t issued any statement on his arrest, while one of the newspaper insiders confirmed that the arrested journalist was a contributor to the newspaper.
“He was not a staffer but was contributing photos from South Kashmir,” the source added.
On Wednesday, September 6th, the Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG), the body containing editors of all major local dailies and weeklies as its members issued a press statement condemning the murder of Gauri Lankesh but surprisingly it didn’t even mention Yousuf’s arrest. The KEG is headed by Chief Editor of ‘Greater Kashmir’ Fayaz Ahmad Kaloo.
On the same day in Srinagar’s press colony, a handful of Journalist appeared with flexes and placards saying, “Kamran Yousuf is a journalist, not a stone pelter” and asked for his release, but the crowd was evidently very thin as compared to the protest held against the ban imposed on newspaper Kashmir Reader last year.
“They (the senior journalist) only come on streets when it reaches their doors, otherwise the small time journalists don’t matter for them,” said a journalist who wished not to be named.
The complete silence of the newspaper and the editor body has evoked sharp criticism from the Journalist in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu based Journalist, Syed Junaid Hashmi said, “Greater Kashmir and the whole journalist fraternity should have come forward for this young journalist, who was doing good in his work and seek answers from the state government and NIA as to why he was arrested.”
Bilal Bashir Bhat, editor of news portal OnlyKashmir.in while showing his sympathy for the arrested journalist said, “Undoubtedly his arrest has exposed the organisation he worked for.”
“An organisation who can’t defend their employees, how can we expect them to address the concerns of common people,” he added.
Aseem Mohiuddin, editor of the magazine The Legitimate attributed the problem to the fact that most of the journalists working in Kashmir for local news organisations are never hired through a proper recruitment method.
“Almost 90% of the staff working in various news organisations in Kashmir are never given any offer/appointment letter. Most of them are appointed through phone calls. So practically there is no proof that a person either worked for them or not. It is high time to institutionalise the media industry in Kashmir,” he added.
Senior Journalist Yusuf Jameel and president of Kashmir Correspondents’ Club had called a meeting of its members on Friday, September 8 to discuss the arrest of a photojournalist, but was delayed after the protests erupted in various parts of Kashmir post-Friday prayers.
He said, “Personally I feel that if there are allegations against him they should be probed in a free and fair manner and no one should be harassed unnecessarily.”
Meanwhile, on Friday, September 8 a joint meeting of the Kashmir TV Journalists Guild, Kashmir Journalist Core, Kashmir Video Journalists Association and Kashmir Press Photographers Association asked NIA to come clear on the charges pressed on the arrested photojournalist.
The NIA Court on Wednesday, September 6 has remanded Yousuf to 10-days police custody. The agency told the court that they were required to be confronted with the other accused in the case.
The arrest comes after NIA announced that it has identified 117 Kashmiris who it believes have been spreading unrest in the Valley. As part of its investigation, the group had identified 6,386 phone numbers and 79 WhatsApp groups who allegedly manage the stone-pelting incidents.
Importantly, the NIA is probing the terror funding case against Kashmiri separatists and has arrested many separatist leaders and workers in this regard.