By Younus Rashid
Today media is considered as fourth pillar of democracy, but the freedom of media is restricted to certain things, while as we have seen the two faces of media, one is totally giving fabricated news, other a little part of media is not fearing and is giving the real sense of news, but unfortunately they are being threatened or something else happens with them. That is why India had slipped three places down in 2017 world press freedom rankings to 136th among 180 countries.
Kamran Yousuf a fearless and a brave photojournalist from volatile south Kashmiri’s Pulwama district, he was contributing correspondent to greater Kashmir, as per greater Kashmir sources. Kamran was picked by NIA (National Investigation Agency) on September 5, which labelled him as stonepelter. After his arrest no organisation for which he was working issued a single statement, which provoked the people on social media to rise questions and most of them were seen angry over the organisations which disowned him. The Kashmiri’s were rising questions to Greater Kashmir, which on 04 March 2017 in a story has mentioned that “Cops thrash GK Lensman” it was Kamran in the story who was thrashed by CRPF. When Kamran was picked by NIA they edited the same story but this time they wrote it as, “Cops thrash lensman in Pulwama”. But from now the link is not working, while going through the link it had been disabled. As, he was working with others, like Gulistan channel, CEN News etc. But no one of them issued anything in support of Kamran. Somehow after ten days the Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG) issued a statement for the release of Kamran. It took ten days for KEG to show there statement, question is what were they doing which took them ten days to issue a statement
Meanwhile on September 14 Press council of India (PCI) issues notice to NIA and J&K police and sought a reply from them in two weeks after taking “cognizance of the matter under Regulation 13 of Press Council (procedure of inquiry’s) Regulations, 1979”. Even Rajnath Sing assured help in Kamran’s case during his Kashmir visit which concluded by a press conference.
A fearless and a brave photojournalist was doing his job by taking pictures of funerals of Armed Rebels, civilian, rallies of mainstream and off stream as well, as was his job. According to his friends he was the first from south Kashmir to report from any incident happening in south Kashmir and the first to reach the spot, a passionate and dedicated journalist is behind bars now. Even his family doesn’t know where to go for the meet of there family member. NIA didn’t came clear on the charges for the arrest of a photojournalist Kamran, is labelling a person as stonepelter and arresting him by NIA a setup of democracy, “no,the answer is big no”, if anything had why didn’t they let a local police station did it. After his 10 days NIA custody ended, court extended his police custody to four more days, the police custody was extended to 19th of this month.
There only goal is to make fear in the minds of Kashmiri’s that is there policy to control the disputed part. But they are living in fool’s world by theses tactics no one is going to change his mind in Kashmir, if you really want that the minds of Kashmiri’s could change is to address the basic issues and a long lasting solution to kashmir issue. Arresting people, Hurriyat leaders and photojournalist is not solution.
The lines from Faiz Ahmed Faiz poem where He says, is quite appropriate to the scenario that our society is presenting today is what I would like to share here:
“nisar main tiri galiyon ke ai vatan ki jahan
chali hai rasm ki koi na sar uTha ke chale
jo koi chahne vaala tavaf ko nikle
nazar chura ke chale jism o jaan bacha ke chale”.
Translation:- My greetings to thy sacred streets, O beloved nation! Where a custom has been invented- that none shall walk with his head held high. And if a devotee yearns to go on pilgrimage.
Then He must walk, with eyes lowered & body crouched in fear.
We have another example of Gauri Lankash she was a senior journalist and an Activist. She was killed on September 5, by unknown assailants outside his house in Bangaloru, as she was not sacred of anyone and most of the people call her and says she was critic of BJP-RSS.
Murdering a senior journalist, is a message which is clearly visible that an atmosphere of fear is going to be created in India where no one will speak and criticize the ruling party.
Assassination of Gauri Lankesh silanced the fearless voice but gave birth to many new Gauri’s .
Author is a Student Activist and can be reached atyounusrashid786@gmail.com.
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