Srinagar: After getting bail from the Shopian court and days after getting bail from a special court, Journalist Fahad Shah was arrested for the third time in a month on the evening of Saturday. The recent arrest by the Srinagar Police was in connection with a prevailing report in his magazine of an encounter in the city in May 2020.
When he was being granted bail by the Shopian court, according to statement from the magazine, Shopian magistrate Sayeem Qayoom noted: “In a barbaric society you can hardly ask for bail, in a civilized society you can hardly refuse it. In other words, ‘bail is a rule and its refusal is an exception’.”
Editor-in-chief of the online news magazine, ‘thekashmirwalla’, Fahad Shah was arrested on February 4 by the Pulwama police. Under the NIA Act, he was granted bail by a special court after staying 22 days under custody, on February 26. Subsequently, he was arrested by the Shopian police and was granted bail on Saturday.
Currently, he is lodged at the Safakadal police station at Srinagar and his lawyer is set to move bail again.
In a statement, it was noted by the J&K police that the journalist Fahad Shah was wanted in three cases for “glorifying terrorism, spreading fake news & inciting general public for creating law and order (L&O) situations.”
The reason of his arrest was social media posts, “tantamount to glorifying the terrorist activities and causing dent to the image of law enforcing agencies besides causing ill-will & disaffection against the country.”
The arrest in Shopian was amid a case against two news portals including ‘thekashmirwalla’ filed by the Army under Sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot) and 505 (statements conducive to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code in January last year. This comes after a report alleging a local army unit “of forcing an Islamic seminary school to hold Republic Day celebrations on January 26” in Shopian, was published by magazine.
At Pulwama Police station, the third FIR was filed after his magazine published a story quoting family members of deceased militants, denying claims of police. The claims made in the report, were contested by police.
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