 I was in Jammu and we got to know at around 5-5-30 our Srinagar staffers, they called us. They had been working in the office and they told us that the estates people came and they asked them to come out of the office that they had to seal the office. So they argued with them, they asked them where is the order and on what basis are you telling us. But they gave no such orders, they said we have no orders, you go and talk to the higher up officers. So that was it and so they were just asked to come out, all our equipment, everything was inside and no new process was followed like you give a cancellation order, you give time to the occupant to file objections as per the estates rules. And then there is an eviction order and the time is given for the occupant to... Six weeks ago we started hearing rumours and many of these rumours were being circulated from within the estates department. Journalistic colleagues also talked about it, must have heard it from there. But that this allotment is being cancelled and they are going to be evicted. So lower rank staff of the estates department would come to our office and tell us that this is going to be evicted, we are going to put a lock here. But there was nothing in writing. So my bureau chief, my manager in Kashmir, they went to the estates department to three times, they asked these officers at the higher level what the matter was and what is the clear picture. But we did not get any response, one person said yes there is an order but we don't know where it is. Then somebody said we have it on the phone, we look for it, very vague answers. So after two days we decided to move the court. So we profiled a petition in the deputy commissioner's office which is now dealing with all these public buildings. And we sought a stay on the basis of the rumours that we heard, that we sought a stay on that and the petition has been heard, the order is awaited. Journalism has never been a cakewalk in Kashmir since the 90s. We hear from our seniors that how difficult it was to be a journalist in those days. When both state actors and non-state actors, there were pressures from both the state as well as the non-state actors, even from the government sponsored gunman called Ikhwan. Journalists were kidnapped on a routine basis and there were pressures to publish the state version and the version of the non-state actors. And if some journalist failed in that and there were consequences. So then there was some kind of semblance of calm or normalcy as one would call it. But it has gotten so worse that more than 32 journalists have been summoned, interrogated, intimidated and summoned to police stations and also cases, fabricated cases filed against them and evicted from government allotted quarters. And the advertisements cut. So the assault is in multiple ways and it has not only criminalized journalism in Kashmir, but it has caused huge psychological barriers. It has caused psychological pressures on journalists. It has caused psychological pain to the families. It is very difficult to survive as a journalist in Kashmir in present day time. You know, I think as an editor running a publication in Kashmir, it's very hard. I think it is the most difficult period for journalism in Kashmir in these times because there are a lot of restrictions. There are invisible restrictions. There are physical challenges like that journalists, editors are getting summoned by police. I have been detained. I have had three encounters with the authorities in the last six, seven months. Two of them have been the summons and once recently, two weeks ago, I was detained from a national highway and questioned for four and a half hours. So it's very hard that what kind of content that you will publish. I think the challenge is also that when you are just a few of the people who are writing and following the news that we used to do all the while and that is the journalist's job, it becomes more difficult. I am not saying that there is other media publications are not doing their job but it is being done differently and there is a lot of pressure on them also. There is a lot of pressure on everyone else. But this is the high time that journalism in Kashmir should not crumble, should not crush. And on top of that, the government has also introduced a media policy which is a draconian media policy under which journalists can be questioned, investigated and their backgrounds will be checked and we have been continuously demanding and I as editor of this publication have been writing constantly that this media policy should be revoked and it should not be imposed on media in Kashmir because then there will be no free press in Kashmir. The last 14 months when there has been a crackdown on the media in Jammu and Kashmir particularly in the valley, we have tried to speak as independently as possible despite you know there was a communication ban first there has been a complete atmosphere of fear under which journalists are operating and despite that we have been trying to write critically about the government policies and actions we have been trying to write about the ground realities, report the ground realities very consistently and that is something that was not to the liking of the government which wants to control the narrative and wants to show just one picture that everything is normal, everything is fine and in doing so they need to impose a certain silence on the media persons so that nobody speaks up and there is an unannounced kind of censorship under which we are operating. Also the other reason could be last year I had gone to court against the communication ban and that was also not something that the government was very happy would have been very happy about because I challenged them in the Supreme Court because the communication ban like every other sphere of life was impacting the working of the media persons, was impacting the working of my own organization I didn't have a clue about how my staffers, whether they were safe or not so I went to court for that and the day I went to court in fact that persecution started at that very time because the very next day the state government stopped our ads impacting our financial health but despite that we've been trying to say what we are saying it means, I mean right now because of the COVID we suspended the Srinagar and Jammu edition initially both the editions and then we tried to resume but as I mentioned you know financially we had been badly hit because the government ads had been withdrawn, JNK's economy was badly hit so the you know component of the private ads was also down and further because of the COVID so we were unable to resume publication in both the places and nonetheless in Jammu we tried and the last three months we've been regularly publishing so the next step was to resume the publication of the Srinagar edition and if you seal the office it becomes impossible for us to you know even think of resuming it so that becomes a problem I mean we face difficulties throughout I mean right from the day Kashmir Times was born or even before it was born even to get it registered in 1954 my father was the founder and the editor of the paper he was you know he was not allowed to get a newspaper registered in his name in Kashmir and so the story began there then he had to shift to Jammu from there to register it here that too in somebody else's name and then from then on there have been several attacks several attempts by state and non-state actors but particularly in the last 30 years of conflict there the attack the level of intimidation and fear has increased for all media persons so including Kashmir Times as well and I mean we faced different challenges during this period particularly in the last 10 years the ways or methods of control have changed in the last 14 months even more so but 10 years ago the DAVP ads were stopped to Kashmir Times for no particular reason they were stopped for several Srinagar-Kishmir based newspapers through an order that was given by the union home minister who did not I mean the DAVP department did not even come under him it came under the information and broadcasting ministry at that time so they stopped but they didn't even just stop the ads of Srinagar edition they stopped the ads of Jammu edition they stopped the ads of our Hindi and Dogri edition and we were finally forced to close these two papers the Dogri and the Hindi one in 2018 even though our Dogri paper Jammu Prabhak was the only Dogri language newspaper in this region and the government has because it Dogri is in the 8th schedule and they committed to protecting and promoting languages they were supposed to give it not just institutional support but also advertisement support which we never got in fact whatever little we were getting it was completely withdrawn and it made it completely difficult impossible for us to sustain that project so those challenges have been going on forever but right now it's much more in the sense that there is no accountability if we approach any officers there is no response they seem to know nothing or they either they were the best they will say these orders have come from higher up and nobody is ready to take any responsibility in the past particularly if I talk about 90s was one of the worst periods when there was militancy was at its peak and journalists including our organization we were caught between the two guns there was the security forces would want journalists to write in a particular way and the militants wanted the journalists to write in a particular way several journalists were killed there were threats people would be picked up or kidnapped even by militants journalists were detained also by police and I think that was a very challenging time because there was physical threat but even in those days if you had a problem if something wrong had been done to you journalists would get together and fight it out you could hold the government accountable I mean even during the governor's rule you could just pick up the phone to the governor and he would respond a certain level of communication was existing between the journalists and the government today that communication channels have been broken my name is Aakip Javad I am a Srinakar Bishar journalist last month I was summoned by cyber wing Abdulman Kashmir police regarding a story I did for an online news report namely article 14 that story was regarding some Twitter users actually were summoned by police here in Kashmir they have tweeted they have posted some tweets regarding aggregation of article 370 show up in alleged fake encounter and many other tweets which were actually criticizing government's policy here in Kashmir so the story was published in a few days on 18th of September I received a call from cyber police to be present here in Srinakar police station so I went there along with my few of my colleagues from Kashmir press club we actually met the cop who actually who called me and he told me that you have wrongly used the picture of cyber police station and this is the real cyber police station so after an hour he told us that you have to meet cyber police of Javad Kashmir police we went there which is just few meters away from Shergadi police station where actually cyber police station is right now so we were asked to wait outside after sometime a cop came from the chamber of cyber police he asked me to come in and told my other two colleagues to wait outside as soon as when I went inside the room while I was waiting outside his room a masked cop came and slapped me twice without any reason when I asked him why he was slapping me he just ran away and as soon as I entered in the room of cyber police chief I told him that my name is Archiband and you have called me here and as soon as I told him he is stood up from nature and started abusing me from other family members and kept shouting on me repeatedly and he said that you have how can you use this picture this is a morphed picture you have used and what is this headline you are maligning the image of Javad Kashmir police and threatened to book me under various sections of Indian law I told him that picture and heading is not my discussion it is a job of an editor you can speak to him but he kept shouting and abusing my family members and threatened me after sometime my other few colleagues were allowed to get in but he did not stop there he kept shouting and shouting at me and abusing and I told him that you can speak to my editor regarding this and in the meantime he spoke to my editor he had no arguments on phone and but he said that you need to change it immediately I told him that this picture is taken taken from Daily Mail UK which is one of the reputed international organization and it cannot be fake or morphed and they have used it with due credits but he said that this is fake story you had done nobody was summoned here he was called this is a fake story I actually have in fact coded him extensively in the story he also said that you have not talked to me and when I reminded him he said that no this is the fake story you have done I will book you under various sections of law then after sometime he made me to apologize and told me that tell your editor to remove the headline to remove the picture and write a note which my editor did because he knew that I was literally taken hostage by the cop it's I mean terrible I don't like to talk about myself but you know all our colleagues from Basharat Masood of the Indian Express to Irfan Hakim of the Economic Times Pizda the Ashik of the Hindu, Nasir Ganay of the Outlook all you know stalwarts in journalism all of them have been facing this harassment continuous intimidation cases filed against every other journalist Fahad Shah you know you saw what happened to Anuradha Basin so it's like you know everyone you name a journalist and the guy has a case against him or her you name a journalist Masrad Zahra for example you name a journalist and they are facing one or other kind of harassment as I said that not only the physical pain but it's also caused psychological pain and at the same time it has caused lot of self-censorship like journalists are scared to write the actual ground reality even when they indulge in self-censorship then they edit their copies multiple times you know to see that how they can be safe the attack on journalism the assault on journalism is so huge and it's so intimidating that many of our colleagues are rethinking about their profession and they are trying to see other avenues to you know support their livelihood and some are trying to simply say goodbye to journalism it's so huge first we had the longest internet ban then we had physical restrictions on journalists also then it started changing the whole journalism scene in kishmir started changing but we have continued doing our job as we have been for last one year we have not stopped we have continuously reported on the issues that matter we have been reported on everything whether it is the rights violations whether it is the politics in kishmir whether it is the arrests or the injuries that people have faced from the pallets and anything else we have not stopped and I don't think we will stop because that is the only way that we are dealing with challenges of course it becomes harder when continuously you are being harassed when continuously you have to face the authorities in one way or the other there is no freedom of expression and there is no freedom after expression and then there are consequences and then at the same time you know it's like as you saw there was this ban first for many many months on the internet so which also hampers journalistic work it doesn't allow you to upload your photographs it doesn't allow you to you know access internet properly and then there are these barriers at every second you know you move out of your house and after every 10, 20, 30 meters you have a barricade you have physical barriers and there is a lot of frisking and there is a lot of unnecessary questioning and then there is also this word hanging on your head that if you write something which is ground reality what could be the consequences so not only there is self-censorship there is also like this you know I have taken a psychological toll on every single journalist in kishmir but at the same time there is one positive thing is that there has been unprecedented solidarity from those journalists who have summoned courage to stand up to all this tyranny and to stand up to all this censorship and you know you know against this act of stifling freedom of expression and freedom of speech in kishmir who have actually offered to work for free like in the case of Anuradha Basin when her office was sealed in Srinagar she was evicted her staff members were evicted from the government a lot of quarters in Jammu and there has been this coalition of journalists and solidarity has poured in that people have actually offered to work for free to keep Kashmir Times as an organization running so that is one positive aspect but there are many many negative things happening Kashmir Times has a history in Kashmir it has been one of the oldest newspapers and it is seen credible by the civil society by the people and it has been one of the newspaper one of the rarest newspapers that has actually been a voice of reason voice of rationality voice of communal harmony trying to bridge the gap between Jammu and kishmir and Anuradha Basin has been very outspoken lady I mean she has spoken against assaults on media freedom so I think not only they try to understand that this lone warrior and lone rational voice in Jammu has to be silenced but by sealing her office in kishmir also there was this larger message that it doesn't matter whether you are a woman, whether you are a man whether you are a young photojournalist like Masrid Zehra, whether you are a senior author or a senior journalist it doesn't matter they will go after everyone and they just want you to to the government's line to become the government's extension arm, PR arm like the DIPR so they see journalists as stenographers they don't want independent journalism they want to criminalize opinions they want to kill journalism in one go so that is the ultimate message I can't say the future of kishmir times we are trying to do our best to ensure that it survives I mean ever since this new episode in kishmir times history the last two days I have received tremendous support from colleagues, from readers in kishmir, from media colleagues in Delhi and it is very overwhelming and very encouraging to the extent that people are offering us space in their homes they say use our space and use it as an office or journalists and senior journalists included well-known journalists who have offered their services free of cost to kishmir times that they would kind of contribute and write for us and do editing and all that and then that's amazingly encouraging whether this can turn into some new and innovative model of whether we can build on a new model of revenue on basis of this massive support that we are getting or whether we finally lose out to the intimidating pressures of the government I cannot say we will try our best and do our best but you know they can put padlocks on our office they can lock up our offices they can ban our newspaper they cannot chain our voices at the end of the day I'm a journalist and as long as my voice is alive I think there are plenty of platforms that can be used but truth needs to be spoken