The Kashmir Reader is back

The Jammu and Kashmir state government had banned the English daily Kashmir Reader after labeling it a threat to “public tranquility” on October 2, 2016. This was at the height of the Kashmir unrest following the death of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani. Three months later, the state has lifted the ban and the Valley paper is back on the stands today with an eight-page edition.

A leader on the front-page declares: Unshackled: We Are Back. It states that the three months away from readers gave the organisation time to meditate and reflect on the “practice and arduous evolution of English language journalism in Kashmir as well as the challenges journalists reporting Kashmir often face”. It also says that muzzling the press is a testament to the government’s inability in finding a political resolution to the current crisis. The paper thanked its colleagues and the Kashmir Editors Guild for supporting it through the ban.

Besides the leader, the paper carried a front-page report on a nine-year-old boy who was blinded by pellet shots earlier this year. This report was supposed to have been published on October 3 but couldn’t be brought out because of the government ban, explains the paper.