Net services make ‘selective’ return to J&K

SRINAGAR: The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have begun to restore Internet service in the Valley through broadband on fixed phone lines. But apparently the subscribers are being picked up for this “favour” only in a piecemeal way. Whether media persons are going to benefit too is not clear yet. A senior government official, however, indicated that the service might be made available to the broadband subscribers across the board.

Kashmir-based journalists and other media persons and organisations have been caught in a very difficult and challenging situation since August 5 when the Centre stripped J&K of its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution and split it into two Union Territories (UTs).

Internet and both mobile and landline services were snapped a night before as part of compete communication blackout in a slew of tough measures initiated by the government in anticipation of widespread turbulence in the erstwhile state over its contentious move.

Apart from adversely affecting medical fraternities, students, travel organisations, trade start-ups, online services and others, the blockade reduced majority of media persons virtually into useless creatures.

However, about a week later the government set up a facilitation centre for the media persons at a hotel in summer capital Srinagar which made access to internet possible. Yet it was a restricted and insufficient kind of an arrangement as only four desktops connected with an internet leased line connection were available for over two hundred local and visiting media persons, leaving most of them high and dry.

Subsequently, the number of access points was increased and since the centre has been shifted to the summer headquarters of J&K’s department of information and public relations along Srinagar’s Residency Road comparatively better internet facility is offered to media persons. The staff of the department work too hard and overtime for the comfort of media persons. In the meantime, landline and mobile phone services were also restored in the Valley fully and partially, respectively.

But, on the other hand, the government has lately embraced several bizarre methods to discount and even run down independent journalists and other media persons including those duly accredited by its own Information Department. They are not being invited to cover important official functions nor do top administration and security forces officials solicit their queries. One senior police officer on being contacted by the correspondent of a national news magazine to obtain information on an issue he was writing on retorted by saying “Why should I waste my time for your story?”

In contrast, “media persons” with dubious credentials are being encouraged to take the limelight for obvious reasons. A case in point is the recent visit of European MPs, drawn mainly from far-right parties. With a couple of exceptions, only this brand of so-called media persons was invited to the press conference four members of the delegation held before ending their two-day visit. The same group of media persons had earlier been introduced to the visiting lawmakers as the members of Kashmiri civil society.

The swearing-in ceremony of J&K’s newly appointed lieutenant governor Girish Chandra Murmu on the lawns of Srinagar’s Raj Bhawan on October 31 was also restricted to few chosen faces in Kashmir’s media fraternity. Routinely, it is a few known national TV channels whose Valley-based reporters are entertained by government officials and security forces’ top-brass.

Some reporters who wrote stories critical of the policies and actions of the government and various other official agencies and the police had to cope with tough situations in the recent past.    

Pertinently, the authorities have repeatedly sought to justify the denial of access to internet and mobile phone services in the Valley by asserting that such steps were necessary to maintain law and order and prevent violence and pointed to the relatively limited number of incidents of violence compared with previous bouts of unrest.

Meanwhile, Kashmir Press Club (KPC) on said that the prolonged and unprecedented internet shutdown in the Valley has entered 107th day which is a matter of deep concern and condemnation. The management committee of the KPC, while discussing the impact of the internet blackout observed that  for the journalists in Kashmir, the communications blackout “has meant minuscule access to the world outside and  over 100 days of deprivation and humiliation”. End it