The Centre has blocked the website and social media handles of The Kashmir Walla, one of the few surviving independent media outlets in the Valley since the 2019 crackdown following the revocation of the erstwhile state’s special status under Article 370.

The news portal, which cannot be accessed, began displaying a message from Sunday night: “The website has been blocked as per order of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under IT Act, 2000.”

Employees of the news portal, who said they have not been able to upload articles on the website since Saturday evening, alleged that no reason had been cited for the blocking. No government official has commented on the move.

The portal’s editor, Fahad Shah, and reporter Sajad Gul are under arrest since early 2022. Shah has been accused of “glorifying terrorism, spreading fake news and inciting violence”.

The Kashmir Walla is one of the few media outlets that spoke truth to power after the 2019 scrapping of special status, writing on the government crackdown on dissent and on alleged rights violations.

Yashraj Sharma, the interim editor of The Kashmir Walla, posted a statement earlier on Sunday saying the website and social media handles of the news portal had been blocked. “When we contacted The Kashmir Walla’s server provider to ask why http://thekashmirwalla.com was inaccessible, they informed us that our website has been blocked in India by the MEITY under the IT Act, 2000,” he tweeted. MEITY is abbreviation for the ministry of electronics and information technology.

The post said the server provider had informed the staff on Saturday that the ministry had blocked their access to the website under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The statement said the staff discovered that The Kashmir Walla’s Facebook page with nearly half a million followers had been removed and its X (formerly Twitter) account had been withheld “in response to a legal demand”.

The statement said no notice was served to the website before the blocking.

The portal described the action as “gut-wrenching”, “opaque censorship” and “another deadly blow” to media freedom in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Since 2011, The Kashmir Walla has strived to remain an independent, credible
and courageous voice of the region in the face of unimaginable pressure from the authorities while we watched our (organisation) being ripped apart, bit by bit,” the statement said.

“For the past 18 months, we have lived a horrifying nightmare — with the arrest and imprisonment of our founder editor, Fahad Shah, and harassment of our reporters and staff amid an already inhospitable climate for journalism in the region.”

The statement noted that the action had been taken at a time when The Kashmir Walla staff were in the process of vacating their office in Srinagar after being served an eviction notice by the landlord.

A four-page dossier giving the “Grounds for Detention” of editor Shah had used pejorative labels such as “anti-national”, “anti-India” and an “instigator” peddling “ISI/separatist propaganda” who is filled with “hate against India” and is “glorifying terrorism”, but had cited no example to back the claims.

The Kashmir Walla said this was “the beginning of the saga of his revolving door arrests” and the harassment of the portal’s staff.

“He (Shah) went on to be arrested five times within four months,” the statement said. “Three FIRs under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and one Public Safety Act have been registered against him.”

Gul, who worked with The Kashmir Walla as a trainee reporter, is in a prison in Uttar Pradesh under the Public Safety Act. The journalist was arrested in January last year after he posted a video of a family shouting anti-India slogans after their relative was killed in a gunfight in Srinagar.

“The Kashmir Walla’s story is the tale of the rise and fall of press freedom in the region. Over the past 18 months, we have lost everything but you — our readers. The Kashmir Walla is beyond thankful that we were read avidly for 12 years by millions,” the statement said.

The blocking of the website has come at a time the government has terminated the services of journalist-turned-chief manager of Jammu and Kashmir Bank, Sajad Bazaz, after deeming him a threat to “security interests”. Bazaz was a widely read columnist on economic affairs and banking and wrote for the Greater Kashmir daily.