The Editors Guild of India has expressed anguish over the shutting down of the Kashmir Press Club. It said the government had effectively dismantled an important journalistic institution of the region that has seen the worst kind of state heavy-handedness against any independent media.
The Guild cautioned that it would set a dangerous precedent. The action was the latest in a sequence of disturbing events, wherein the “re-registration” of the Club was first arbitrarily put “in abeyance” by the Registrar of Societies on January 14, followed by the shocking breach of institutional norms when a group of people, with the active support of the police and the CRPF, took over the office and management of the Club on January 15.
