J&K News: The journalists have been asked to join investigations into the banned website (File)
Four journalists were questioned by police in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar after their homes were raided yesterday and documents, laptops and mobile phones belonging to them seized.
A senior police officer told NDTV the raids were linked to an ongoing investigation into a website - kashmirfight.wordpress.com - accused of making threatening posts against journalists.
The website has been blocked within India.
The four journalists - Showkat Motta, Hilal Mir, Azhar Qadri and Shah Abbas - were not arrested, the police stressed. A senior officer said they were summoned after their names emerged during the investigation, and that they have been asked to join the probe.
A local journalist pointed to the irony of the situation - that journalists were being questioned over a website that posts allegations against members of the profession.
Jammu and Kashmir police said the four journalists who are under investigation will be arrested "as and when the evidence are collected".
In a statement, the police claimed to have found credible evidence which links the accused journalists with the mastermind behind “terror” web portal.
Back in 2018 police claimed the website - which they said was being operated from Pakistan - behind a vicious campaign that led to the murder of Shujat Bukhari - the founding editor of the Srinagar-based Rising Kashmir newspaper.
In July this year five people, including an officer of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, and his daughter and son-in-law, were arrested for running the "terror web portal".
Police described their arrest as a "major breakthrough".
Sources, though, said police have been unable to file a charge sheet to establish the arrested individuals' involvement due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.
However, it appears content continues to be uploaded; the raids yesterday came a day after the website made serious allegations against the editors of four Srinagar-based newspapers, who were questioned for several hours and released yesterday, only to join investigations this morning.
Some journalists have also alleged that action against the website in question is part of a wider crackdown on media in Kashmir, and that dissent is being criminalised.
Over the past two years there have been frequent incidents of journalists being harassed.
Some of them have been summoned to police stations for questioning and others have been booked under UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act), the stringent anti-terror law.