For J&K’s Incarcerated Journo Aasif Sultan, Homecoming Was Too Little, Too Late

Sultan, who served five years in prison, was rearrested in a 2019 case, just hours after he returned to Srinagar.

Aasif Sultan’s incarceration has been one of the high-profile cases pertaining to what critics describe as an "appalling" press freedom condition in Kashmir.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Kashmiri journalist Aasif Sultan, who served five years in prison, was allegedly rearrested in a (separate) 2019 case – just four hours after he returned to his home in Srinagar after being released from Ambedkar Nagar district jail in Uttar Pradesh in a militancy-related case.

Sultan’s incarceration has been one of the high-profile cases pertaining to what critics describe as an "appalling" press freedom condition in Kashmir. But police and security forces insist that Sultan was never arrested for his journalistic work but was booked for supporting militants.

Free speech advocates have denounced the latest arrest of Sultan, saying it "erodes the trust in the law".

Why Was Aasif Rearrested?

On Thursday, 29 February, The Quint visited the home of Sultan in Srinagar. His uncle Mehraj-ud-Din said that Sultan had arrived at his home at 12:30 pm on that day.

“Our relatives and neighbours had converged here to congratulate us over Sultan's release,” he said. “We were happy. But later during the day, we received a call from Batamaloo police station. They wanted Aasif to report there. Later, we learnt that he was driven to a separate police station in Rainawari in Srinagar.”

Mehraj-ud-Din also said that the family has approached Srinagar District Court and moved for the bail application.

His father Muhammad Sultan said that it was only four and a half hours that Aasif had been at his home before Batamaloo police called them. “They said the case is pertaining to the incident of violence at the Central Jail,” referring to riots that had broken out inside Srinagar Central Jail in April 2019 when inmates allegedly resorted to vandalism over reports that some of them were being shifted outside the erstwhile State. 

“We had no idea that there was this case as well,” he said.

He also questioned why his son was arrested despite the “clearance letters” from J&K administration after which he was let out of Ambedkar Nagar Jail. 

The Quint does not take responsibility for this claim as the J&K Police couldn’t confirm it at the time of filing the story.

Charges Levelled for Alleged Involvement in a Terrorism Case

Arrested in August 2018, Sultan was charged with conspiracy, and for offering support to militants of the Hizbul Mujahideen group.

The arrest had come in the wake of a gunfight in the Batamaloo locality in Srinagar on 12 August that year during which the militants escaped a search operation by firing at the posse of policemen in which one cop was killed. 

Later, the police filed the First Information Report (FIR 173/2018) accusing ten persons including Sultan of "conspiracy, harbouring terrorists and giving support to a terrorist organisation.” In the chargesheet pertaining to the same case, police claimed that during a raid on Sultan’s home, the investigators recovered 17 papers with HM letterheads from his room.

However, on 5 April in 2022, a National Investigative Agency (NIA) court of Special judge issued bail to Sultan arguing that "there is neither any direct evidence nor any substantial evidence on the record which would have connected the accused/applicant herein with the alleged crime.”

But he wasn’t released despite the bail order and instead was booked under a Public Safety Act (PSA), a stringent preventive detention law in J&K. 

Time Magazine’s '10 Most Urgent’ Cases of Threat

Sultan’s incarceration has attracted a great deal of international criticism because of the widespread attention it received globally. In February 2021, the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), founded by Hollywood actor George Clooney and his lawyer-wife Amal Clooney, announced they are monitoring Sultan’s trial.

Through its 'Trial Watch' programme that had taken a note of Sultan’s detention, the CFJ claims to "fight for the rights of individuals unfairly targeted by oppressive governments through the courts.”

Sultan is also the recipient of the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award from the American National Press Club in 2019. He featured in TIME magazine’s 10 ‘Most Urgent’ cases of threats to press freedom around the world in 2020.

The club in its statement came out in defence of Sultan, saying that he was “accused of aiding insurgents even though he merely reported on them.” 

His Controversial Burhan Wani Profile 

As an Assistant Editor for Srinagar-based Kashmir Narrator (which has since wound up its operations), Sultan wrote a long-form story in 2018, profiling the militant leader Burhan Wani whose killing in 2016 had triggered political unrest in the erstwhile State. In the story, Sultan had incorporated quotes from the militant associates who had known Wani and had also worked with him.

In the security parlance in Kashmir, such associates are termed Over Ground Workers (OGWs) and are treated at par with militant combatants. The J&K Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) later wrote a long email to Kashmir Narrator’s editor-in-chief, expressing objections to the story that draws on inputs from OGWs and "glorifies terrorists.”

In August 2018, the police filed a second FIR against Sultan for writing against "uniformed forces” and "supporting militancy.”

In December, the Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh (JK&L) High Court quashed the PSA against Aasif, with Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul observing that the detention order was "illegal and unsustainable” as the detaining authority failed to provide Sultan with all the relevant material on which the order was based which violated his rights "under Article 22(5) of the Constitution of India and Section 13 of the J&K Public Safety Act, 1978.”

His final release this week was pursuant to this judgment. 

Rearrest Despite No Evidence Suggests Legal Bypassing

Besides the judgments that highlight the absence of any significant incriminating evidence substantiating the charges that he has been accused of, critics have also pointed out that Sultan’s case has been marred by a number of inconsistencies. 

In 2018, during a raid at the Sultan’s house in Batamaloo, the police said they had found incriminating letterheads – one of the key pivots on which the terrorism case against Sultan was hinged. The chargesheet mentions that the raid was pursuant to the disclosure obtained during interrogation from Shazia Yaqoob, one of the ten accused in the UAPA case.

But when presented before the court of executive magistrate on 24 September that year, Yaqoob denied knowing Sultan at all.

“These are the doings of an extra-legal state. There is no rule of law, and legal processes are being completely sidelined,” said Geeta Sheshu, who heads Free Speech Collective. “That journalists who have done so much work are languishing in jail like this is absolutely shocking.” 

(Shakir Mir is an independent journalist. He has also written for The Wire.in, Article 14, Caravan Magazine, Firstpost, The Times of India and more. He tweets @shakirmir. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)