SRINAGAR: A Kashmir-based journalist – who is under police detention– has been booked under the Public Safety Act, even as the Fact-Finding Committee (FFC) of Press Council of India has recommended that intimidation and detention of journalists in Kashmir should be stopped.
Fahad Shah, editor of a news portal and magazine, who is under detention since February 4, has been booked under the stringent PSA.
“Sensing that the special court may grant the bail as the allegations levelled against the Fahad Shah does not prima facie connect him with the commission on any offence, the authorities have taken recourse to J&K Public Safety Act,” Shah’s lawyer Umair Ronga said.
Sources said the government has ordered his lodgement at Central jail, Kupwara. He is currently lodged at Safakadal Police Station in Srinagar.
Under the PSA, a person can be booked without trial for upto two years. Fahad, who is editor of The Kashmir Walla, has been arrested in three cases and was granted bail in two cases by the court.
"Shah has been booked under the PSA, a day before his bail application was scheduled to come up for hearing," the journalist's lawyer, Umair Ronga said here.
Ronga said the authorities had sensed that Shah will get bail on Tuesday, so they booked him under the PSA "to prolong his detention".
"I am in consultation with his family and we will knock on the doors of the High Court as well as the Supreme Court to get justice," the lawyer said.
Fahad was arrested on February 4 by Pulwama police under UAPA for alleged wrong reporting about an encounter in Pulwama on January 30 in which four militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad including a top commander Zahid Wani and a Pakistani militant were killed.
Fahad was granted bail by a special NIA court on February 26. However, he was arrested by Shopian police in another case on the same evening.
On March 6, Fahad was arrested by police for the third time in another case hours after he was granted bail. Media groups and bodies in India and abroad have demanded his immediate release.
(With PTI Inputs)