Jammu and Kashmir police have booked Bandipora Correspondent of news agency Kashmir News Observer over a WhatsApp status depicting 20 youngsters who died in a boat capsize event on Wular Lake on May 30, 2006 as “martyrs.”
Sajid Raina, a KNO Bandipora correspondent, received a call from the Bandipora police station informing him that a FIR has been filed against him for keeping a WhatsApp status that depicted 20 children who died in the Wular lake boat capsize disaster on May 30, 2006 as “martyrs.”
“I was horrified to see that a FIR had been filed over a simple WhatsApp update regarding 20 children who perished in a boat capsize in Wular Lake on May 3, 2006.” This is a complete shock. He explained, “I don’t know what went wrong with my WhatsApp status.”
Meanwhile, KNO informed high police officers about the situation, but received no answer.
The Kashmir Press Club, Editors Guild, and other media organisations are urged to take note of the problem, as journalists in the outlying areas are harassed on a daily basis under various pretexts.
Earlier this week, KNO’s copy editor was summoned to the Bandipora police station over a Tweet on the moving of the Oxygen Plant and the non-functionality of the ventilators at DH Bandipora (Level-III Covid Care Facility).
Over a simple Tweet, the editor was forced to sit in a police station for hours and was “interrogated.”
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The Chenab Times News Desk
