Fahad Shah, 33, founder-editor of The Kashmir Walla (TKW), was back home on Thursday morning following his release from the Kot Bhalwal Jail-Jammu, six days after a double-bench of J&K High Court granted him bail.
Mr. Shah was arrested in February 2022 and stayed in jail for 21 months. He was back-to-back booked in four different cases later. “It was a very tough phase. Jail changes a lot in you. It will take time to get back to normal. I am happy I was released. It has come as a relief for my family, friends, colleagues with whom I have worked over these years,” Mr. Shah told The Hindu.
His arrest in 2022 evoked sharp reactions from the media fraternity. At least 50 press freedom organisations, human rights groups and publications wrote to J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, on February 14, 2022, and pressed for his immediate release.
Arrested for reportage
Mr. Shah was first arrested for reportage published on his news portal about the Pulwama encounter. Since then, Mr. Shah has faced three other cases pertaining to reportage by his news magazine. In October last year, Mr. Shah and scholar Aala Fazili were booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in a “narrative terrorism” case for a write-up published in 2011. The police alleged the write-up was aimed at “spreading terrorism and creating a false narrative”.
The J&K High Court, in its order reserved on Friday last, came down heavily on the administration. It quashed the charges levelled under Section 18 and Section 15 of the UAPA. “There is no material to suggest that the article has any content that provokes people to take to arms and resort to violence,” the double-judge bench observed.
The court also underlined that an arrest may be justifiable for the purpose of investigation and unravelling the crime but “once the police have no further need of the accused in the investigation and the accused is in judicial custody, then the question arises if he ought to be enlarged on bail or be held back as an under trial? This is where the dictum of bail and not jail comes into play.”
This was the fourth time Mr. Shah has secured bail since 2022 . He was also booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) but this was quashed by the court earlier this year, saying “the detaining authority has used both the expressions “Public Order” and “Security of the State” with a wavering mind.
