Opposition decries takeover of Kashmir Press Club building, offices by police in Srinagar

File picture of the Kashmir Press Club on Polo View road in Srinagar
| Photo Credit: Nissar Ahmad

Opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir — Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and J&K Peoples Conference (JKPC) — on Wednesday (March 19, 2025) cornered the Government over police takeover of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC) and stringent police verifications for jobs and passports in the Union Territory (UT).

“The takeover of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC) and converting it into a police office and taking two offices at the Press Colony and handing over to police’s Special Investigation Agency (SIA) was an attempt to shoot the messenger and a thoughtful move. It was also an attempt to muzzle the voices of people. When mainstream leaders were arrested in 2019, it was independent media that stood by us. It’s time to relocate the police offices and hand over the KPC to journalists,” PDP legislator Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra told the J&K Assembly.

Mr. Parra also called for scrapping of the current media policy needs “for being blatant censorship”. “The policy need not be reviewed by scrapping. Media was the biggest casualty during the 2019 crackdown,” he added.

J&K’s summer capital Srinagar is without a press club since the J&K administration in January 2022 put in abeyance the registration of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC), at a time when it was preparing elections. The Club had around 300 journalists registered with it.  

In a reply to the J&K Assembly, the government said the Press club, which operated from the Estates Department’s building, was closed because of disagreements among its members. “The premises were vacated and are now temporarily occupied by the Jammu and Kashmir Police,” the government said.

JKPC chief and legislator Sajad Lone also raised the issue of terminations carried out by the Lieutenant Governor in the past three years in J&K.

Mr. Lone asked the government if it was reviewing such terminations. “Is there any roadmap to reinstate them in service or give them an opportunity? If someone was dismissed, they should be told why and allowed to defend themselves,” Mr. Lone said.

Mr. Lone termed police verifications of job aspirants in J&K as “intrusive in nature”.  

“I downloaded the form from the internet and was surprised to see it asks where you went for the past five years, where your wife went for the past five years, who your father-in-law is, who your mother-in-law is,” Mr. Lone said.

He emphasised that there should be “a distinction between a civilian department and a police department. “The Chief Minister, who is also the minister in charge, should reconsider these long-standing practices that appear more police in nature than civilian,” he added.