Police threaten journalists with arrest in India

Police threatened to arrest two journalists based in Srinagar, capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on July 10, 2009, for reporting that the family of a missing youth, Asrar Mushtaq Dar, feared he may have “disappeared” in police custody, according to a statement issued by the Kashmir Press Bureau. Dar was later found to have been murdered in a personal dispute with a friend, according to local news reports.

Police called and threatened NDTV’s Srinagar correspondent Fayaz Bukhari and CNS news agency reporter Rasheed Rahi, the bureau said in the statement. One of the callers was allegedly Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda.

Local journalists said Rahi was also harassed by authorities from the Khothibagh police station in Srinagar, and that a police complaint was lodged against him for his reporting on an earlier incident that involved the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian that led to violent protests in the area.