Srinagar: Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG) has taken a strong exception to a news report published from Srinagar in ‘The Times of India’ and has decided to take legal recourse over the report.
The editors termed the TOI report, which casts aspersions on the Kashmir based journalists as malicious, propagandistic, motivated and defamatory.
The said report has raised points questioning the integrity of the members associated with KEG and the Kashmir Press Club (KPC), terming them as a creation of ISI and ‘Jehadi Journalists’.
Notably, KPC conducted its first elections last week wherein a managing body was elected through an overwhelming participation of journalists working in Kashmir and the entire exercise was appreciated by all quarters in the state.
The editor’s body felt perturbed over the consequences of such a life threatening piece of reportage published by TOI.
Meanwhile, Kashmir Press Club (KPC), Srinagar; Kashmir Working Journalist Association (KWJA), Kashmir Journalists Association (KJA) and Kashmir Press Photographers Association (KPPA) too have described the fabricated report as an attempt to defame entire media fraternity in Kashmir.
The newly elected management committee of the KPC in its meeting today took a strong note of a news story published in the Times of India newspaper. It was observed that the story is baseless and full of insinuations against unnamed executive members of the club.
While condemning the story as highly objectionable, the members observed that it seems to have been filed by the concerned reporter with malafide intent to bring in disrepute to the elected journalist members in particular and the entire club in general.
“The management committee of the club has decided to formally take up the matter with the Editor of the newspaper in New Delhi,” a statement issued by KPC said
Kashmir Working Journalist Association (KWJA) and Kashmir Journalists Association (KJA) have expressed outrage over the insinuating report published by the Times of India which uses unsubstantiated allegations to malign and endanger the journalist fraternity of Kashmir and respected institutions like the newly formed Kashmir Press Club, Kashmir Editors Guild, and the daily Kashmir Reader.
“We find it unfortunate that the Times of India has given space to such an insinuating report based on the fantasies of some reporter,” a joint statement issued said.
“Ironically the author is trying to create aspersions on Kashmir Press Club even though he had been appointed the president of its first (ad hoc) managing body, with the support of Kashmir Editors Guild,” said the statement.
In the meantime, Kashmir Press Photographers Association too has condemned the report saying it has been done to malign the image of Kashmir journalist fraternity.
