Waiting for Justice

After travelling through the dusty plains and steep mountain roads for two days, Aasif Sultan arrived home from jail on the afternoon of February 29, 2024. The incarcerated journalist walked out of jail after spending over 2000 days in different prisons in Jammu and Kashmir and in Uttar Pradesh, about 1540 km from his home in Batamaloo, Srinagar on February 27, 2024. But his freedom was short-lived. After spending just five hours at home, the authorities summoned Aasif to a police station, where he was re-arrested.

Aasif’s latest arrest under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) is related to an incident of rioting on April 4, 2019 in Srinagar’s central jail where he was lodged at the time. The 36-year-old journalist was arrested on August 31, 2018, on charges of being an overground worker of militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen and harbouring and aiding militants.

No evidence

A mass communication and journalism graduate from Kashmir University’s media and education research centre in 2011, Aasif was working as assistant editor for monthly English publication Kashmir Narrator at the time of his arrest. The now defunct magazine carried his cover story headlined ‘Rise of Burhan’ which his former colleagues allege is the main reason for targeting him, a charge denied by the authorities. In the 4,000-word story published in June 2018, he wrote about the young Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani with interviews of overground workers (those who provide logistic support to militants) and others.  The most-wanted militant commander’s killing triggered months of protests which were met with force leading to the death of 90 civilians and injuries to over 12,000 with over 1000 people including young girls losing eyesight due to injuries from pellet guns fired by the security forces.

Securing bail under the UAPA is extremely tough with the Supreme Court of India holding that bail is an exception and jail is the rule in a case under this anti-terror law. Aasif Sultan’s bail order issued by the special judge for the National Investigation Agency on April 5, 2022, noted that there are stringent conditions for bail under sub-section (5) of section 43-D of UAPA. “But in the present case after perusing the material available on record including the statements of prosecution witnesses recorded before this court it has not been proved beyond reasonable doubts that the applicant/ accused was involved in the commission of offences as alleged in the chargesheet,” it said. “There is neither any direct evidence nor any substantial evidence on the record which would have connected the accused/applicant herein with the alleged crime, so in the absence of ocular as well as substantial evidence on the record the grounds taken by the learned counsel for the accused/applicant herein carries weight.”

Lawless law

The PSA dossier accused Aasif of working for militant organisations and “propagating stories which are against the interest and security of the Nation.” The police chargesheet accused him of “following a selective and particular pattern of disseminating anti-India sentiment in a very subtle manner mostly though some of the stories are brazenly provocative as well and legitimising and romanticising stone pelters and other instruments of violence. “Each heading of your story highlights the propaganda content you seek to spread,” the dossier said.

The PSA, which Amnesty International termed a ‘lawless law’ allows detention of a person without trial or charge for up to two years and has been found to be used to secure long-term detention of political activists, critics, suspected members of armed groups and a range of individuals against whom there is insufficient evidence to keep them ‘out of circulation’.  The law was used against politicians, journalists and critics following downgrading the state into two union territories and annulling Article 370, which bestowed semi-autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in August 2019. The Union Territory of J&K is directly ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the centre.

Revolving door

Since then, a revolving door of laws has been misused to silence media in the region has booked four journalists Fahad Shah, Gowhar Geelani, Manan Gulzar Dar and Irfan Mehraj under UAPA. Besides, three journalists including Fahad Shah, Sajad Gul and Majid Hyderi have been booked under the PSA. While Shah was released last year on bail after over 650 days of incarceration, Gul and Hyderi continue to be in jail. Initially, Gul was booked for ‘criminal conspiracy’ in January 2022 and was granted bail. But before he could walk free, he was booked by the police under PSA. The Jammu and Kashmir High Court invalidated charges pressed against him under PSA in November 2023. But he continues to be in jail as he is facing another case. Likewise, Hyderi who was booked on charges of criminal conspiracy and extortion is in jail since September 2023.

Besides, there have been multiple raids and questioning of journalists at police stations in the last four years. As if this was not enough, threats and posters with names of journalists were circulated on social media by militant outfits to silence them for their own reasons. This pattern of harassment, according to several journalists, has a chilling effect on their work and many have abandoned the profession. Those who continue to pursue journalism prefer to focus on docile issues which do not ruffle feathers of any side. “We have adopted silence to avoid repercussions,” says a journalist requesting anonymity to avoid reprisal. With over a decade experience reporting from Jammu and Kashmir, he says like him, his colleagues do not want to face harassment and avoid focussing on issues which show the government in bad light. “None wants to take risks. No story whatsoever is worth one’s life. Asif is a case in point. He and his family’s struggle is on our mind.”

Holding on to hope

Aasif’s prolonged arrest has earned him global recognition with the American National Press Club awarding him Press Freedom Award in 2019. He also featured in a list of 10 most urgent cases of press freedom in the world prepared by One Press Coalition, a grouping of leading news organisations in the world. In February 2022, 57 press freedom organisations including the International Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists, human rights groups, and publications to call for the immediate release of Sultan and other detained Kashmiri journalists.

Amid this struggle, Aasif’s lawyer has applied for the bail challenging the rioting case pressed against him on March 1, 2024, said his father Mohammad Sultan. Alongside 26 inmates, according to the state’s plea challenging the bail, Aasif and another inmate have been described as the “main perpetrators” and “apparent invokers” in the case. It alleged they played the “main role” in setting the jail barracks on fire, “assaulting public servants”, “attempted murder”, “raising anti-national slogans”, and “spreading toxicity against the national integrity”. 

Even as Aasif languishes in jail, his father Mohammad Sultan expects that justice will prevail and that their son will be set free by the court. The 67-year-old and a retired employee of the health services has held onto this belief since the day Aasif was arrested and has been reassuring his family, particularly his six-year-old granddaughter Areeba.

“When Aasif was taken away after five hours at home, his daughter searched for him. I told her, he has gone to memorise Quran,” he says. But on seeing her father at the police station in Rainawari, Mohammad Sultan recalls Areeba telling him after seeing a pile of files on the table there, “Baba has been given long homework. It will take him time to complete it and return home.”

The wheels of justice turn slowly indeed.

Aasif Sultan has been imprisoned without trial since 2018, with two separate courts finding his detention under the PSA and UAPA illegal. Sultan has been arrested three times since 2018, with only two days spent outside of jail in February 2024. Credit: Facebook