Sajad Gul was detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, in January 2022, for reporting a story. He spent 910 days in jail. Gul detailed the harassment he faced at the hands of the police and the harrowing conditions in jail to Shahid Tantray, The Caravan’s multimedia reporter. An edited excerpt from the conversation is reproduced below. Gul’s story highlights the struggles of journalists in conflict zones, where truth-telling often comes at a tremendous personal cost.
Journalists in Kashmir have been silenced, gradually, step by step. We still have some good journalists here, and, if they were allowed to do real journalism, they would unravel tremendous things. But they have been silenced. Even those who worked on an international level and have written books are no longer visible. Only those who align themselves with the state, who participate in its celebrations, can manage to stay afloat. But the good journalists, the ones who cannot compromise on their principles, cannot survive here. There is no space for them. I have learnt this the hard way.
As a student of journalism, I began my career writing for the newspaper Greater Kashmir, where I covered my home district, Bandipora. Later, I joined the Kashmir Walla and began reporting on local issues. Almost immediately, my troubles began.
In 2021, I reported a story on a demolition drive led by a tehsildar in Hajin, where residents were being pressured to vacate their homes without being offered alternative accommodation. My report quoted the affected residents, the tehsildar as well as other officials. The tehsildar got angry and filed a first-information report against me. I tried to reason with him, saying, “Why are you doing this? All I did was to write a story.” But he would not listen. He contacted the police and asked them to charge me with pelting stones. He made it out to be that I had disrupted the demolition drive and assaulted government employees. But, on the day of the demolition, I had been in Srinagar with my editor at The Kashmir Walla. My editor even wrote an official letter stating I was with him. I showed that to the police, and asked them to check my geo-location to see where I was that day.