Lawfare, Summons – Journalists

Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday (February 8) summoned two journalists for questioning them over a story related to the proscribed pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)’s call for a strike on the death anniversaries of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat. The story is already in the public domain.

Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Srinagar-based counter-insurgency grid summoned Naseer Ahmad Ganai, who works for the Outlook magazine, and Haroon Nabi, who works for local news gathering agency Current News Service (CNS). They were grilled for publishing and circulating a statement of the JKLE, which was banned in 2019 under the anti-terror law.

The group had e-mailed to the media fraternity a statement calling for a shutdown in Jammu and Kashmir on February 9 and 11 to commemorate the hanging anniversaries of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and
JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat.

Guru was hanged in Tihar jail on February 9, 2013, following his conviction in the 2001 Parliament attack case while Bhat was hanged on February 11, 1984, following his conviction in a case involving the murder of an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) official.