Srinagar, Oct 22: Kashmiri broadcaster, Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor, who works for the BBC, has lamented curbs and pressures on the media in Kashmir, and said that Indian news organisations projected the state as a war zone. She said that saffronization wave sweeping India since 1989 had had a deep impact on the media as well, creating a state of intellectual bankruptcy out of which it was yet to emerge.
Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor, speaking at the concluding day of a Youth Festival in Srinagar, Mahjoor said that the media in Kashmir was suffering from unseen hands, and advocated a press totally free from government control.
“It is nearly impossible to imagine the difficulties and risks Kashmiri journalists have faced in the past decades of uncertainty and danger,” she said. Mahjoor maintained that the journalist community in Kashmir was highly concerned about the needless interference and pressures it was being subjected to. “Even today local TV networks are under severe curbs,” she added.
Nayeema Mahjoor pointed out that Indian news organisations projected Jammu and Kashmir as a war zone.
Having worked for long years with the Radio Kashmir before moving to the BBC, Mahjoor said that certain programmes telecast by the local station of Indian broadcaster Doordarshan were controversial in nature and hurt the sensibilities and sentiments of a large number of viewers. News agencies