5 Kashmir Journalists Resign After Militant Threat

SRINAGAR: Five journalists working for an English newspaper published from Srinagar resigned Tuesday after the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba and its affiliate The Resistance Front (TRF) threatened to go after a dozen names in the local media, branding them “military agents and informers of security forces”.

Police said an FIR was registered against Lashkar and TRF at Srinagar’s Shergari police station under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for “online publication and dissemination of a direct threat to reporters based in Kashmir”.

“We want to make it crystal clear that anyone related to occupier Indian-sponsored media houses in the Valley will not be spared…Journalists working with these traitorous media houses will be targeted as they are spreading the fake narratives,” states a threat published on the blacklisted blog kashmirfight.com and attributed to TRF.

This isn’t the first time that terrorists have intimidated or threatened journalists in the Valley with dire consequences. Shujat Bukhari, former editor of the newspaper Rising Kashmir, was shot and killed by Militants in June 2018. Over a dozen other Kashmiri journalists have lost their lives to Militants bullets.

Sources said the five who quit their jobs after the latest threat were all employee of Rising Kashmir. They announced their decision to resign on social media.(Agencies)