Journalism is dangerous business in the Kashmir Valley

Last Friday, Rising Kashmir’ came out with an edition carrying the full-page photograph of its former editor-in-chief Shujaat Bukhari against a black background. The page carried a pithy yet telling message: “We won't be cowed down by the cowards who snatched you from us. We will uphold your principle of telling the truth howsoever unpleasant it may be...Rest in peace!"

One more silenced, and with Bukhari’s murder the toll of the number of journalists killed in over three decades of armed militancy has reached nearly 20.

He is not the first journalist who has fallen to the bullets of unidentified assassins in Kashmir, often referred to as the ‘most dangerous place on earth’, that has been wracked by an armed insurgency for over three decades.

Mushtaq Ali, Ghulam Rasool Sheikh, Parvez Mohmmad Sultan, Ashok Sodhi, Tariq Ahmad and scores of other newspersons have died during this period—all for simply doing their work. In most cases, their killers are still unidentified.

In August 2000, Pradeep Bhatia, a photojournalist with Hindustan Times, was among the 12 people who were killed in a bomb blast in Srinagar which was claimed by Hizbul Mujahideen. Eight years later, security forces killed cameraperson Javed Ahmed Mir while he was covering a protest in Srinagar. One is not taking into account hundreds of others who have to walk the razor’s edge in an unfriendly environment, braving threats, harassment and at times bullets. Many still walk the tightrope not knowing who they are likely to offend.

But the horrendous killing of Bukhari, 50, by unidentified gunmen who sprayed him with bullets as he stepped out of his office in Press Colony in the heart of Srinagar has plunged the media fraternity into shock. Camera footage now released by the police shows three attackers on a motorcycle. While the rider was wearing a helmet, the other two men were wearing masks to hide their identity and can be seen carrying guns hidden in a sack.

In the late 90s, several journalists were kidnapped by gunmen belonging to the ‘Ikhwan’, the notorious government-backed counter-insurgent militia. Veteran journalists Zafar Mehraj and Bashir Manzar who still work in the Valley are living proofs. In September 1995, Yusuf Jameel, then with the BBC, survived a parcel bomb explosion in his Srinagar office after his colleague Mushtaq Ali opened the package addressed to him

Bukhari was hit by a hail of bullets by the gunmen at a close range and a security guard on his protection detail was also shot dead while another was injured. Many condemned the act swiftly.

Even though Bukhari was given police protection since an attack on him in 2000, his death is a disturbing reminder who still work there and who will continue to entail violence, threats, kidnappings and even death.

It is when journalists challenge the preconceived images of Kashmir as a beautiful landscape, as ‘Jannat” (heaven) and expose it as a place beset by mindless violence, that it rubs the authorities the wrong way.

"Journalists working in Jammu and Kashmir have long been subject to a range of threats. Authorities must turn this rising tide of risks by thoroughly investigating this murder and holding the perpetrators to account," said Robert Mahoney, Committee to Protect Journalists deputy executive director, in a statement soon after Bukhari’s killing

In the late 90s, several journalists were kidnapped by gunmen belonging to the ‘Ikhwan’, the notorious government-backed counter-insurgent militia. Veteran journalists Zafar Mehraj and Bashir Manzar who still work in the Valley are living proofs. In September 1995, Yusuf Jameel, then with the BBC, survived a parcel bomb explosion in his Srinagar office after his colleague Mushtaq Ali opened the package addressed to him.

It is no surprise that journalists operating in the state work in trying circumstances, coping with pressure from the state government, investigative agencies and paramilitary forces, all of whom have been accused of attempting to stifle the press. Let’s not forget how much self censorship journalists have to practise.

Many have had to do the fine balancing act of not being dubbed “government stooges” or “glorifying” armed insurgent groups. Militant organisations, too, have their ways to exert pressure on the media.

In the early 90s when many journalists wrote against militant groups or separatists, they were individually told that they were crossing the line through their own sources. Otherwise, these groups would issue press statements giving their side of the story. Today, many don’t know who the enemy is. It is a dangerous trend.

Given that except for periods of uneasy calm, Kashmir has largely been on the boil and making news for the wrong reasons, scribes have had to learn the hard way to survive.

Whether it was the welter of dissent in the Valley that formed protests in the early 90s when full scale militancy had broken out, the kidnappings, bomb blasts, cordon-search operations, the alleged atrocities by security forces or the unrest on the streets because of the ‘stone pelters’, many have paid the price for chronicling these events.

Photography in conflict-hit Kashmir has emerged as a powerful eyewitness to its troubled present. Over the past 30 years, a significant generation of photographers has chronicled the disturbances and the dangers associated with it.

Existing narratives and literature documenting the turmoil of Kashmir have grabbed headlines time and again. But for the first time a book, “Witness: Kashmir 1986-2016 - Nine Photographers” offers a visual narrative of the disturbances in the region over the decades, through the eyes of nine photographers.

The portraits of ordinary people stuck in the middle of conflict are numbing. Most of the lensmen are covering gunfights and encounters with live bullets whizzing past their head. Heavy-handed tactics by security forces battling street protesters and fighting insurgents have aggravated the problem.

The fear is palpable. There comes a time when you have to be scared. From being the targets of violence, shot at, injured or arrested on a regular basis, journalists in Kashmir have to tread the minefields carefully. The fault lines are just too many.

The author is an international radio broadcaster based in Delhi. He has travelled extensively to Kashmir for assignments. Views are personal