EGI asks J&K Police to withdraw gunfight covering advisory

SRINAGAR — The Editors Guild of India (EGI) on Saturday demanded the withdrawal of J&K Police’s advisory, forbidding journalists from reporting live gunfights with militants on the specious plea that it is “likely to incite violence” or that it can promote “anti-national sentiment”.

In a statement, EGI said, “Nothing can be further from the truth. Visibly, the police is giving an impression of trying to maintain peace by attempting to control the fallout of violence in a high strung environment, but what is being instead done is an attempt by the security forces to escape from any kind of media scrutiny about the flow of events behind the violence,” reads the statement.

EGI said that live reporting from conflict areas, including gunfight between government forces and militants, is one of the most important journalistic duties of any responsible media, and requires extreme grit and determination on part of the reporters.

“At best, there may be some guidelines that can be issued with respect to reporting from such scenes, with the aim of protecting the integrity of tactics and plans of security agencies, as well as to avoid journalists from interfering with the evolving situation and from sensationalizing the issue that can stir up emotions at audience’s end. Globally those have been the norms adopted by responsible governments,” added the statement.

“In this respect, the advisory of Kashmir Police is draconian and undemocratic, and flies in the face of the stellar role journalists have played in reporting conflict in the country. Therefore, the advisory must be withdrawn immediately,” EGI added.