Srinagar-based local news portal, The Kashmir Walla on Sunday said that its office was raided by the sleuths of the newly constituted, State Investigating Agency.
In a statement, The Kashmir Walla said, The State Investigation Agency (SIA) sleuths along with the teams of Jammu Kashmir police raided its office and the residence of its editor-in-chief Fahad Shah in Srinagar’s Soura area.
The warrant for the raid was issued by the Additional Sessions Judge, Jammu, dated 13 April 2022. The search warrant, given to The Kashmir Walla and Shah’s family, is under FIR number 01/2022 under the Indian Penal Code’s sections 120B, 121, 124, 153-B and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act’s sections 13 and 18, registered at JIC, SIA, Jammu.
A Police spokesman said that the article titled “The shackles of slavery will break” was published in the Monthly Digital Magazine “The Kashmir Wala” which is highly provocative, seditious and intended to create unrest in Jammu Kashmir. “It was written in the year 2016, with the purpose of abetting the youth to take the path of violence by glorifying terrorism, he said. “…and on the other the write-up promoted and propagated the false narrative, which is essential to sustain secessionist cum terrorist campaign aimed at breaking the territorial integrity of India.”
He said the article has “repeated reference to freedom and terror outfit’s rhetoric makes it amply clear that the article is not merely propaganda. Rather, it is articulation of Pakistan ISI and the vision of its sponsored terrorist secessionist networks.”
“It is pertinent to mention that the author of the article, Aala fazili, Mpharm (Pharmaceutics) is a PhD scholar in the department of pharmaceutical sciences at Kashmir University and took a monthly compensation of rupees 30,000 per month for five years till March 2021,” read the Police statement.
The Kashmir Walla in its statement said that the officials seized the laptops of two reporters, a Mac from the multimedia department, six hard drives that had backups, and five CDs. They also checked reporting dairies and phones of two reporters, who reached the office during the raid. The Kashmir Walla co-operated with the officials during the raid and facilitated the formalities.
In the raid at Shah’s residence, a laptop of another Kashmir Walla staffer, who was also there during the searches, a tablet device, and a voice recorder were seized.
It is pertinent to mention that on on 4 February, Pulwama Police arrested him for 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.”
Later, on February 26, when he secured bail in the case, he was taken to Imam Sahib police station in Shopian district, after being arrested in a case registered against a report carried by his portal in January 2021.
Subsequently, a week later, on March 05, Shah was granted bail by the Shopian magistrate. And later in the evening, he was arrested by Srinagar police.
Later, on March 14, Fahad was shifted to Soura police station. Of recent, i.e., on March 16, Fahad was moved to the Kupwara District jail.
The Jammu Kashmir police have stated that Fahad was “Propagating stories in a particular selective narrative which is in line with the ISI/separatist propaganda.”