Journalists in Indian Kashmir asked to sign pledge vowing to keep peace

India has imposed restrictions in Kashmir since revoking its autonomy in 2019

Newspapers, with headlines about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to revoke special status for the disputed Kashmir region, are displayed for sale at a pavement in Ahmedabad, India, Aug 6, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo

Police in Indian Kashmir have asked at least three journalists working in the region to sign a pledge vowing not to "disturb peace" in the region, two of them told Reuters on Wednesday.

A third journalist, an assistant editor with the Indian Express newspaper, was summoned to a police station in Srinagar, the capital of the federal territory, but did not sign the pledge, the newspaper said in a report published on Wednesday.

India has imposed several restrictions in the troubled Muslim-majority region after revoking its constitutional autonomy in 2019, laying out rules for how the insurgency in the region is covered and reported.

A spokesperson for Srinagar police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

The Indian Express, one of India's most respected dailies, said its journalist was summoned four times between January 15 and 19 and asked to sign the pledge on Jan 16.

"He has not signed the bond as asked by the police. The Indian Express is committed to doing what is necessary to uphold and protect the rights and dignity of its journalists," the paper's chief editor, Raj Kamal Jha, said in the report.

Two other journalists Reuters spoke to said they had also been summoned, but one of them was travelling and the other did not go to the police station. They declined to be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

The journalists and the Indian Express said the summons were issued after they reported that police in the region were seeking information from mosques about their funding, management and budgets.

The Press Club of Kashmir, an association of journalists in the region said in a statement dated Tuesday that several of its members had been either summoned or advised by police to stop covering stories on profiling of religious institutions.

"Using police powers to summon journalists over their legitimate reporting is part of a pattern of intimidation against the media in Jammu and Kashmir," Kunal Majumder, coordinator for the CPJ Asia-Pacific Programme, a non-profit that works for press freedom, said.

India and neighbouring Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir. Both control parts of the region but claim all of it.

An anti-India insurgency that began in 1989 killed tens of thousands of people in Indian Kashmir, but violence has since ebbed.