“One of them, Kamran Yousuf, who works for a Delhi based news portal, was injured in the attack by the cops,” KEG said in a statement .
Kamran as per the statement had told reporters that he had gone to cover the encounter and well before he could start work, paramilitary men asked him to go away. “As he was moving away from the spot, the security detail of a DySP rank police officer pounced upon him without any reason and beat him ruthlessly. He somehow fled and reached the hospital with the help of his colleagues where the doctors treated him. He will have to stay bed-ridden for many days owing to his leg injury,” the statement added.
“KEG is condemning the use of force against the media persons,” it said, adding that Editors’ body asked the authorities to permit media in delivering their professional duties. KEG demanded the police leadership in Kashmir to sensitize the field staff about the operations of the media and investigate the Marwal assault.
The Guild wanted the Lieutenant Governor Jammu and Kashmir to personally look into the assault.
Meanwhile, Kashmir Press Club (KPC) strongly condemned the thrashing of three journalists by Jammu and Kashmir Police in Pulwama. “Going by the account of Kamran, it is clear that the police has targeted the journalists to stop them from carrying out their professional work which is reprehensible,” KPC said, adding that the Club wanted to make it clear that this is not the first incident where journalists have been targeted by the forces and stopped from carrying out their professional work.
“In the past too many such incidents of harassment, thrashing and summons to media persons have been brought to the notice of the authorities at the highest level,” KPC said.
The management of the Club while demanding strong action against the policemen involved in today’s incident urged the top brass of the J&K police and Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to take note of such difficulties media persons face while delivering their duties on the ground.
The Club urged the authorities particularly the police to sanitise their ranks about respecting and upholding the press freedom in Kashmir.
However, police in a tweet said that the media persons tried to move close to the encounter site following which they were duly stopped.
“Today an exchange of fire took place at village Marwal between terrorists and SFs. Cordon was placed to prevent people from venturing inside as that would have endangered their security. However some media persons tried to move close who were duly stopped,” Kashmir Zone Police tweeted.
