SrinagarThe Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG) on Tuesday strongly reacted to the ‘fake’ reportage purportedly being done to crush Kashmirs tourism economy.
In an indirect reference to a fabricated report in a national daily about attack on tourists in Srinagar on Monday, the KEG in a statement said the recent misreports are part of a sustained media blitzkrieg to negatively portray Kashmir as a tourist destination.
Police and tourism departments have also strongly rejected the ‘report’ about attack on tourists.
The premier media body said that a sustained campaign has been initiated to misrepresent facts and fictionalise events that are hitting hard the media as a credible source of information and the local economy.
”Over the last few years, a sustained and fabricated campaign has been initiated wherein basic principles of reporting and ethics in journalism are being compromised.
The media is increasingly being used as a tool to promote fake and fabricated news which smacks of ill intentions to damage the Kashmir economy.
Cautioning those responsible for such acts, KEG asked the larger media within and outside the state to ensure that while facts must be reported, the fiction and fake news should not be used to impact the local eco-systems.
FIR Filed For ‘Baseless’ Report
Jammu and Kashmir Police on Tuesday filed an FIR into the baseless news item carried by Times of India regarding attack on tourists by stone pelting youth in Valley.
A police official said an application was moved by ten tour and travel operators against Bureau Chief, The Times Of India, for alleged malacious reporting of attacks against tourists in Kashmir Valley.
They said that the “misinformation” has disturbed the tourist arrivals and created an atmosphere of fear etc.
Cognizance was taken and FIR Was registered FIR No 26/2018 U/ S 505(2) RPC (Statements conducing to public mischief), a spokesman said.
Earlier, the police refuted the newspaper report that buses carrying tourists were attacked in Dalgate area of Srinagar city and in Awantipora area of south Kashmir.
Apropos a news item published in The Times of India newspaper with byline of Sh Salim Pandith, regarding tourists being injured in stone pelting at Dalgate area of Srinagar city and Awantipora, a police spokesman said.
As per the Srinagar district police no such incident of stone-pelting took place in that area yesterday as reported by the correspondent.
The spokesman also refuted that any tourist was injured, as reported by the newspaper. Police investigation has also shown that no injuries to anybody were reported from area, he said.
He said that two tourists suffered minor injuries after their vehicle was caught in the middle of an area where clashing were going on between the protesters and the forces on April 1. They were given first aid and discharged immediately. There has been no intended or designed attack on any tourist, he said.
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