By Betwa Sharma
Delhi: “Ridiculous,” “absolutely false,” “surreal,” and “unbelievable”.
That’s how Anuradha Bhasin, the editor of Kashmir Times, described the alleged recovery of weapons and bullets from the Jammu office of her newspaper and the allegation of “involvement in criminal conspiracy with secessionist and other anti-national entities”, levelled against her 10 days after a Kashmiri doctor orchestrated a terrorist attack that killed 13 people in Delhi.
While cautious about accusing Pakistan outright, despite indications of Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed’s role, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has zeroed in on Kashmir with aggressive counterterror operations, widespread detentions and questioning, creating a pervasive climate of fear.
Print operations at the newspaper founded by her father, Ved Bhasin, in 1954 had stopped amid the growing climate of media repression in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), and the Jammu office has remained shut since 2021. Bhasin, one of the remaining few critical voices from the region, told us.
She and her husband and co-editor, Pramod Jamwal, who is facing the same allegation, had been in the United States—first while she was on a university fellowship, and later as they took on various research projects, after their newspaper stopped generating revenue.
They had revived Kashmir Times as a website in 2023, mostly self-published a few pieces, and occasionally worked with young reporters who wanted to learn the ropes, but made no money from the digital operation either, she said.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.
