Two more photojournalists in Kashmir detained since Sunday: Kashmir Walla report

Two more journalists have been picked up by the police in Kashmir in the past two days, the Kashmir Walla reported. The two journalists have been identified as Junaid Peer from North Kashmir’s Sopore district and Sulaiman Sath from Central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.

Peer works with Urdu newspaper Tameel-i-Irshad and Sulaiman works with Urdu newspaper Daily Gadyal as a freelancer. “We don’t know why he has been detained,” Peer’s brother Adnan Shafi told the Kashmir Walla. “We tried to reason with the police officials about his arrest but they have not given us any answer so far.” Peer has been locked up at the SDPO town hall in Sopore, his brother said.

According to the report, Sath’s father Abdul Majid Bhat has also not been told the reason for his son’s detention since Sunday, which is when the police barged into their house and took his son. Bhat was also not allowed to meet Sath when he visited the Ganderbal police station.

Both the sub-divisional police officer of Sopore, Furqan Qadir, and the senior superintendent of police of Ganderbal, Nikhil Borkar, have given little information on the nature of the detention of the photojournalists.

Last week, photojournalist Mukhtar Zahoor was detained after a raid at his residence in Srinagar. In the past few months, several journalists and photojournalists in the valley have been raided, detained and had complaints registered against them.