A shutdown was observed in Srinagar and the adjoining areas in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) on Sunday to protest the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) move to summon All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to New Delhi for questioning, the Kashmir Media Service reported.
On Saturday, Indian media reported that Mirwaiz as well Naseem Geelani – son of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the chairman of another faction of the APHC – have been issued summons by the NIA.
India Today reported that Naseem Geelani had previously been summoned twice; however, this was the first time that Farooq was summoned. “India Today TV has learnt Mirwaiz [Umar Farooq] has been asked to present himself before the investigators at NIA’s New Delhi head office on Monday [March 11],” it added.
According to NDTV, the two had been summoned for questioning in an ongoing investigation into a terror funding case.
The strike call for Sunday was given by the Srinagar-based Traders Coordination Committee and was supported by Beopar Mandal Mahrajgunj and Jamia Market Srinagar.
Committee’s chairman Nazir Shah said summoning Farooq is a direct attack on religion, which is unacceptable to the trader community. He said traders would hit the streets if the summons are not revoked. “The Mirwaiz family has been at the forefront of religious activities and any attack on him is an attack on Kashmiris,” Shah was quoted as saying. “New Delhi is pushing the people of Kashmir into fire by making an onslaught on socio-religious organisations and religious leadership,” he added. In a post shared on Twitter, Jammu and Kashmir former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said Farooq isn’t ‘any ordinary leader’, adding that he is the ‘religious and spiritual head’ of Kashmiri Muslims. “NIA summons to him are emblematic of GOI’s repeated assaults on our religious identity. J&K [Jammu and Kashmir] is the proverbial sacrificial lamb exploited to divert attention from real issues,” she said.
Separately, several prominent newspapers in the occupied valley published blank front pages in protest against the unexplained denial by Indian authorities of advertisements to the Greater Kashmir and Kashmir Reader, the KMS reported.
According to the KMS, authorities stopped advertisements to the two daily newspapers a day after the February 14 attack in occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama area, which killed more than 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers.
The Kashmir Editors Guild earlier sought the attention of the Press Council of India and the Editors Guild to exercise their legal, ethical and professional mandate to intervene in the issue and ensure that the media was not strangulated, the KMS reported. They condemned the ban and said that the media in Kashmir is one of the most professional and has retained its neutrality even at the cost of lives.
Mehbooba Mufti shared an image of a blank front page of the Greater Kashmir. “Centre’s decision to stop ads to it should be viewed in context of their attitude towards press and electronic media in general. Kowtow to their warped agenda and sing praises. Or else suffer,” she added.
Published in Daily Times, March 11th 2019.
