Opinion | Let us fight it out with pen as a bullet that goes on and on for thousand of miles’

Failed journalist but still a technology master, operating from Turkey and threatening journalists in Jammu and Kashmir!

Until you realize how easy it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else’s game.’ We Journos have to just say, ‘Check and Mate Boy’

‘Obviously it has to be a bad and a ridiculous idea. Why play with bullets when it is enough to dwarf any eventuality!’

‘Baba they used to call him and Mukhtaar is his name! Why is he using social media and operating from Turkey, Istanbul or Ankara or maybe fro streets or Alley’s of different city of Turkey!’

He was threatening people like us who still arrow straight without realizing that we too can target him with the pen! Two are needed, one to cock the bullet and one to press the trigger!

‘In journalism also two are needed, one to write on the paper and then get on to the keyboards!’

Mukhtaar Baba perhaps knew journalism and that is why he has been threatening the journalists in Kashmir! Let us see how far he goes and how much we travel!’

Lucrative easy money is bad for health, the journalists in Jammu and Kashmir should know that!’

‘Earning hard earned money travels long but earned from men like Mukhtaar Baba covers the distance which is short, infact very short!

‘Examples are many but I will quote nee today! Journalists have a job to do but if they indulge in a sell off then they are endangering themselves! Sorry but this is the truth!’

Positivity in security matters but negativity does not!’ It ‘Cannot’!

‘A few days back we just latched on to a story and it was born and bred up in Kashmir and it said that ‘the Jammu and Kashmir Police have launched an in-depth investigation into threats to more than 20 prominent journalists allegedly by former scribe Mukhtar Baba, currently based in Turkey, at the behest of terror elements.’

To us it sounded interesting and we thought why not write this one because the character Mukhtaar Baba itself sounded a bit of a man who thinks that he dictates and conditions of writing!’

Mukhtaar Baba himself was a journalist but went on the wrong path which he thought was glory but law and we think was wrong all the way!

The threats have led to the resignation of five journalists from the Rising Kashmir newspaper as fear mounts in the press. We knew from the very beginning after Shujaat was hit by the bullets! Shujaat word for the publication Hindu and he started his own publication (The name we have mentioned above’!

In the preliminary investigation, security agencies identified former journalist Mukhtar Baba, who also ran a public relations (PR) agency, as the mastermind behind the publication and circulation of a list of journalists that accused them of being ‘collaborators and informers of security forces.’

‘ None can stop the writers and Mukhtaar Baba is a piddly squirrel!’ Journos do not be afraid! Many of us have given our lives, perhaps and possibly more will! Let us fight it out with pen as a bullet that goes on and on for thousand of miles’

One of the reasons could be that some journalists in Jammu and Kashmir have to be blunt and those are being hurt and threatened!
But we will not stop from writing! Journos in trouble in the Valley! Threats are coming up thick and fast! Why!
The security agencies are on the button and what they are doing goes something like this:
Security agencies have traced the origins of the latest terror threat to journalists in Jammu and Kashmir, which prompted some of them to resign, to Turkey-based Kashmiri terror operative Mukhtar Baba who had in the past also worked as a journalist with Kashmir-based news organisations.
As per an intelligence dossier on Mukhtar accessed , he was in frequent touch with six persons based in J&K – of which two have been identified as J&K government employees as part of Pakistan’s ISI-backed conspiracy to propagate fear by selectively highlighting the resignations of certain Kashmiri journalists as an outcome of the circulation of a hit list type message on social media.
The threatening message, claiming to be from Lashkar-e-Taiba arm The Resistance Front (TRF) and having been circulated on Telegram, had put out a ‘hit list’ of 11 Kashmir-based media persons, after branding them as “traitors” for allegedly not toeing the line of Pakistan.
Mukhtar, linked to Hizbul Mujahideen since the nineties, is originally from Shaheed Gunj in Srinagar who had later shifted to S K Bagh, B K Pora, Nowgam, before escaping to Ankara, Turkey. He is a frequent visitor to Pakistan from Turkey and has emerged as a key man propagating a “false narrative and grooming youngsters in the Valley for terror activities under the banner of TRF”, a source told TOI on Thursday. The source added that Mukhtar had built a network of informers from within the media.
Sources indicated that four of the six identified persons who were in touch with Mukhtar – placed in Turkey sometime in 2018 by Jodha Carin Fischer, a US national of German origin who operated in J&K as ISI’s deep-penetration agent for eight years before her cover was blown and she was deported – are from the media.
For starters, the two suspects employed with J&K government, zeroed in based on a careful intelligence assessment, further verified by human intelligence and technical intelligence like phone intercepts – may be picked up by agencies soon and put through sustained interrogation, said a senior J&K government officer.
The officer added that there may be more than six accomplices in frequent contact with Mukhtar, and that it may require a mission-based approach to identify such elements Intelligence reports alleged that some specific media persons and outlets were “very cleverly” fulfilling the agenda of the “adversary” by propagating the fear and intimidation by selectively linking the resignations by media persons to their mention in the TRF hit list.
The 55-year-old Mukhtar was affiliated with Hizbul Mujahideen since the 1990s but was shunted out of the outfit after he was found to be involved in selling 40 AK series rifles belonging to Hizb to another terrorist organisation. He is said to have made huge money out of this deal. Though he was arrested and served time in Kot Bhalwal jail in 1990, he managed a release within a few months. -Muhtar, an intelligence officer, has worked with Kashmir in Various Media Houses which explains his familiarity with the media environment in Kashmir
“FIR No. 82/2022 U/S 13 UAPA, 505, 153B, 124A & 506 IPC in Shergari PS,” Srinagar Police wrote on Twitter.
Journalists,People will always try to scare you into things. Scare you away from things. Scare you into not wanting things you can’t help wanting. You can’t be afraid.’ Move on! You have to!