On 19 November 2025, Indian police raided the ‘Kashmir Times’ in Jammu. They said they were on an “anti-terror” operation. The offices had been shut since 2022 and were in dilapidated condition, the equipment largely defunct. Yet, the police claimed to have recovered a “pistol and live AK-47 cartridges.”
Since 2018, only five journalists have faced cases under India’s draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Trials rarely start, leaving journalists in a state of perpetual purgatory, even if they are out on bail under onerous conditions.
Before the police came charging into these unused offices last year, the ‘Kashmir Times’, founded by my father in 1954, had long suffered sustained persecution – the seizure of records, of equipment, the harassment of staffers, the use of social media to spread slurs, trumped up charges of tax evasion and the embedding of spies.
The first ever copies of Kashmir Times, initially a weekly, were seized by the government. In 1983, my father survived a murderous assault with serious injuries inflicted by a Hindu nationalist mob. I joined the newspaper in 1989, as the armed militancy, the ‘insurgency’ against the Indian state, became widespread, and experienced firsthand the struggle to report the news accurately and truthfully. The government would frequently withdraw its advertising, which was the main source of funding for most news outlets. We were besieged on several fronts, facing down the state, militants and aggressive Hindu nationalists.
In 2019, as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi began his second term in office, his government removed the special autonomous status granted to Jammu and Kashmir and protections that had existed for nearly 70 years. Once a state, Jammu and Kashmir was split into two federally governed territories. The Indian-administered part of Kashmir – the subject of several military conflicts between India and Pakistan, with both countries claiming the entire disputed territory while controlling a portion of it – had effectively become a police state and control of the media was a critical component of this transformation.
As Executive Editor of the ‘Kashmir Times’, one of the oldest newspapers in the region and the largest, with four editions, I petitioned India’s Supreme Court against the six-month-long internet shutdown that the Modi government imposed in 2019. But by 2020, three editions of the ‘Kashmir Times’ had shut down and the fourth only limped along, a once daily newspaper that was now only occasionally published. By February 2022, even this edition was shut down. I left India with my husband Prabodh Jamwal, the editor of the ‘Kashmir Times’, and revived it as a digital newsroom in exile in the United States in November 2023.
But, as the so-called terror investigation and the mysterious discovery of weapons in our long disused office in 2025 showed, the ‘Kashmir Times’ remained a thorn in the side of the Modi government. The Indian prime minister has frequently presented India on the international stage as the “mother of democracy” and the “Vishwaguru”, a moral exemplar and teacher to the world. Just last week, between September 12 and 13, Delhi hosted Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian as part of the annual BRICS meeting, the global group founded initially by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (hence the acronym) that is increasingly being presented as an alternative power centre to the American-led Western alliance. For an India seeking to portray itself as not just an emerging superpower but as a democratic force, it is vital that Kashmir remain repressed, hidden away from global scrutiny.
It’s why, even as a newsroom in exile, we continue to be pursued by an Indian government seeking to tarnish our credibility, to deny us the right to report on Kashmir. We are being subject to a vendetta and it represents what has happened to journalism in Kashmir. Journalists have been silenced by the Modi government, Kashmiri voices strangled, and the local media industry deliberately destroyed.
What is happening to journalism in Kashmir is a harbinger of what lies ahead for the rest of India.
Geeta Seshu of Free Speech Collective, which monitors press freedoms in India, argues that Kashmir is a laboratory where every strategy of media suppression is tested and perfected for use elsewhere. India, which once had a noisy, argumentative press, now ranks at a lowly 157 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the ranking, says “press freedom is in crisis” in Modi’s India.
The 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act provided a “dangerous framework for expansion of surveillance and censorship” across the country. It empowered the government to demand data from any entity, including journalists, effectively requiring them to reveal their sources. The amendments to the 2020 Information Technology Rules already burden intermediaries with harsh obligations and have been used to arrest journalists, block websites and compel social media platforms to restrict content. Recently, Instagram restricted posts about reports of Kashmiris shot by Indian security forces using pellet guns on unarmed protestors.
Seshu’s fear that what happens in Kashmir will be replicated in the Indian mainland has largely been borne out. For example, in 2023, nearly 50 journalists associated with the portal ‘NewsClick’ – some only vaguely – were subject to arrests and interrogations. Many had their devices seized without due process. Their alleged crimes were essentially guilt by association, charges manufactured not from evidence but from a, frankly, lazy piece of journalism published in the ‘New York Times’ about NewsClick’s funding. The charges were eventually quashed by an Indian court.
Such court rulings are less likely in Kashmir. As a Kashmiri journalist based in Delhi says, “unlike the rest of India, Kashmir is a police state, and state control requires any independent journalism to be shut down.”
In Kashmir, the Indian state has engineered a sophisticated edifice of control through securitization, surveillance and interrogation. It is invisible, intangible, and all-pervasive, a model that extracts quiet surrender and obedience. Unlike the targeted killings of journalists in Gaza, in Kashmir the control of information is seamlessly embedded in everyday life, requiring no enforcement, no traces of brutality. The journalists are essentially cowed into submission.
It began with the world’s longest internet shutdown – a complete lockdown for six months and a partial one for another year. What the shutdown created, despite a court verdict restoring communications, was fear among journalists compelled to work out of a government-surveilled computer facility, and then a perpetuation of that fear through consistent localized and temporary digital shutdowns. So commonplace are these shutdowns that they no longer warrant reporting or commentary.
In June 2020, the Modi government introduced a 53-page document called ‘J&K's Media Policy’ which gave the authorities sweeping powers to monitor, judge, and punish journalists, branding critical reporting as “fake news”, “unethical”, or “anti-national”. The authorities would also routinely remove government advertising from cash-strapped outlets and provide accreditation only to journalists deemed loyal, thus turning bureaucrats into arbiters of what constitutes news and who gets to report it. The effect is chilling.
And then there’s the monitoring of communications.
“I can’t say if they’re using Pegasus or some other spyware or technology,” a journalist told me about being interrogated over emails sent to an editor, “but they knew everything about our conversations.” In a 2021 leak, it turned out the Indian government was using Pegasus to spy on at least 40 Indian journalists, only one of who was Kashmiri.
But, a Kashmiri journalist says, “officials have told us ‘nothing in Kashmir is end-to-end encrypted’ and digital activity is clearly being constantly monitored.” No Kashmiri journalist I spoke to for this story, including those who contribute to the ‘Kashmir Times’, have the encrypted messaging Signal app, used worldwide by journalists, on their phones. Devices are routinely checked when journalists are summoned to police stations in Kashmir for questioning. Some said their devices were returned after being tampered with. “You face humiliation and beatings for using Signal and VPNs,” many journalists said. “You can only get away with it if you’re not on their radar,” said one.
In November 2025, the Indian government issued a directive insisting on verifying the “bona fides” of journalists working in Jammu and Kashmir, and the police followed up by requiring journalists to part with personal information including biometrics and bank statements. In January this year, senior journalist Basharat Masood of The Indian Express spent seven hours at a Srinagar police station, then was summoned for three more days and told to sign a bond promising not to “repeat his mistake” – for reporting on the surveillance of mosquea surveillance, even as officials had already admitted to large-scale data collection and verification.
Police also surveil Kashmiris through the use of drone cameras, a network of 1,000 electronic cameras installed at major traffic junctions, and through unrestricted access to people’s social media activity across platforms ostensibly to track anti-India activity. During an illegal “Census 2024” drive, the police collected residents' personal data and GPS-tagged coordinates of homes. And the soon-to-be-rolled-out Jammu and Kashmir-specific digital identity cards that collects the data of entire households, purportedly to ensure the smooth rollout of welfare schemes, has also sparked local anxieties.
Still, as pervasive as the surveillance is, it is journalists that find themselves in the firing line. Any critical word warrants a summons to a police station, interrogation, intimidation and even detention. This happens repeatedly, with journalists never aware of what specific “offence” might trigger a police summons. The reflex, after several such visits to police stations, is self-protection and self-censorship.
A Kashmiri journalist told me that the language the police use to summon journalists for questioning is particularly sinister. It is almost as if the police are enjoying instilling fear. “Aaj dastarkhan par aapki dawat hai”, for instance, is a typical summons. You are invited to a feast, the police say cynically, knowing a journalist is likely to be harshly questioned, even beaten.
Often, Kashmiri journalists, without notice, are placed on no-fly lists. Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, was twice prevented from travelling abroad for exhibitions and award ceremonies, a pointed message that even international recognition offers no protection. At least twelve journalists have had their passports revoked; two of them were already abroad at the time, rendering them stateless.
The Free Speech Collective filed a Right to Information (RTI) query in March 2024 to ascertain exactly how many Kashmiris had had their passports revoked or cancelled. The plea was rejected by the government on grounds of “national security”.
As India continues to press its case as a formidable, if still rising power, citing its 7.8% growth rate over the past quarter, it continues to be defensive and secretive about Kashmir. Foreign journalists are largely barred, or at least heavily restricted, from reporting from both Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. In May, last year, India and Pakistan exchanged air strikes after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir and Modi fell out with Donald Trump over the latter’s claim to have stopped both nuclear powers from accelerating towards a disastrous war.
Despite Kashmir being a long-standing issue that merits global attention, reporting from the region has reduced to a trickle.
A Google search of Kashmir-related news floods your screen with links, but it is bulk without substance. Articles read like a log of official announcements and statements, punctuated by the occasional piece on a shrinking water body, a development project, a political tussle over a non-issue, or unemployment figures. Each report floats like a loose, individual particle suspended in air, packaged and presented as definitive. No investigation into context. No excavation of the past. No interrogation of contributing factors. A story about an alleged terrorist’s hair transplant and cosmetic dentistry, based entirely on police sources, is passed off as an investigation into Kashmiri insurgency. A superficially detailed piece on anti-encroachment drives or home demolitions will carry little beyond the grief of the displaced, or the remarks of a politician whose interest in the community begins and ends with votes. A terrorist’s hair transplant story, based on the police version, passes off as an investigation into Kashmir’s complex insurgency dynamic.
Kashmir fell off the radar a long time ago, says Free Speech Collective’s Geeta Seshu.
Even mundane stories are difficult to report. No one wants to be quoted. A university professor said he could once “talk to journalists and trust they understood the context. Now, a single sentence can be pulled out, circulated on WhatsApp, and suddenly I’m either an anti-national or a government stooge. Both sides will use the same quote to attack you differently. Why would I take that risk?”
Tarushi Aswani, an Indian journalist, told me that “a curtain has been pulled over Kashmir by silencing journalists who ask questions.” Instead, she added, “press release journalism fills the vacuum, erasing the truth about Kashmir, its history, its politics, its development, environment and aspirations.” Kashmir is no longer looking at a mirror. The lack of truthful reporting means nothing is reflected back. Instead, Kashmiris are looking into the lens of a surveillance camera.
*The eight Kashmiri journalists interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity.
Aakash Hassan
Alishan Jafri
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