KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Vijdan Kawoosa, a young reporter runs www.jandknow.com. On Wednesday, he was summoned by J&K Police and has been asked to report today once again.
Vijdaan said he was “harassed and intimidated” and accused of “instigating youth towards violence”.
The content of the statement is being reproduced here verbatim
I urgently want to bring the Kashmir media fraternity’s attention to this fresh fact that after Kashmir Reader, Jammu and Kashmir police today (October 19) summoned me (J and K Now) at its cyber cell in Srinagar where its three officers harassed and intimidated me for over three hours. My ailing father was accompanying me.
The police summoned me regarding a video statement of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit that I had published over a month ago in routine. Being journalists, we receive thousands of e-mails from every section of the society, including the police and the government itself, requesting publication.
However, the police is now accusing me of “sympathizing with the militant group” and being “on their payrolls” or “having links”, only because my website was the first to share their statement then, which was later copied everywhere by media based in Kashmir and elsewhere.
These police officers shouted at me, saying that the news post on my news site J and K Now would “instigate youth towards violence and I was an equal party to the crime”. They threatened to make a case on me if I did not reveal the person I was in ‘contact’ with among the militant group. Even though I showed them my all mails, and the particular mail, I gave them access to my e-mail account on which I had received the anonymously e-mailed statement, they continued to shout on me and didn’t let me speak/clarify.
Later, they made note of most of my e-mail addresses, phone numbers and family members, and also took the password of my Facebook profile to which my website’s page is linked. They asked me to cooperate or they would “deal with me the way police deals”.
They have seized my driving license and asked me to report to them at 10 am tomorrow (October 20) before an SP.
