Opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir — Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and J&K Peoples Conference (JKPC) — on Wednesday (March 19, 2025) cornered the Government over police takeover of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC) and stringent police verifications for jobs and passports in the Union Territory (UT).
“The takeover of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC) and converting it into a police office and taking two offices at the Press Colony and handing over to police’s Special Investigation Agency (SIA) was an attempt to shoot the messenger and a thoughtful move. It was also an attempt to muzzle the voices of people. When mainstream leaders were arrested in 2019, it was independent media that stood by us. It’s time to relocate the police offices and hand over the KPC to journalists,” PDP legislator Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra told the J&K Assembly.
Mr. Parra also called for scrapping of the current media policy needs “for being blatant censorship”. “The policy need not be reviewed by scrapping. Media was the biggest casualty during the 2019 crackdown,” he added.
J&K’s summer capital Srinagar is without a press club since the J&K administration in January 2022 put in abeyance the registration of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC), at a time when it was preparing elections. The Club had around 300 journalists registered with it.
In a reply to the J&K Assembly, the government said the Press club, which operated from the Estates Department’s building, was closed because of disagreements among its members. “The premises were vacated and are now temporarily occupied by the Jammu and Kashmir Police,” the government said.
JKPC chief and legislator Sajad Lone also raised the issue of terminations carried out by the Lieutenant Governor in the past three years in J&K.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
