On 1 August 1996, three unidentified men — one armed with a pistol — abducted Ashraf Shaban, the editor-in-chief of the Urdu-language daily “Al-Safa”, from the newspaper’s offices in Srinagar, Kashmir, and forced him into an auto-rickshaw taxi. Shaban has not been seen since and no one has claimed responsibility for his abduction. Shaban, who […]
On 1 August 1996, three unidentified men — one armed with a
pistol — abducted Ashraf Shaban, the editor-in-chief of the
Urdu-language daily “Al-Safa”, from the newspaper’s offices in
Srinagar, Kashmir, and forced him into an auto-rickshaw taxi.
Shaban has not been seen since and no one has claimed
responsibility for his abduction.
Shaban, who assumed the editorship of “Al-Safa” following his
father’s assassination, has frequently been intimidated by both
militant separatists and government security forces. In September
1995, Border Security Forces (BSF) troops detained and
interrogated Shaban for nine hours, accusing him of meeting with
militants on a regular basis. And in late 1994, the separatist
group Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen sealed the offices of “Al-Safa” for
two months after the newspaper published a government
announcement of electoral roll revisions. Shaban’s father,
Mohammad Shaban Vakil, the previous editor-in-chief of “Al-Safa”,
was shot dead by masked gunmen in his Srinagar office on 23 April
1991, a case that remains unsolved.
Shaban’s kidnapping is the second such incident involving a
Kashmiri journalist in less than a month. On 8 July, the Jammu
and Kashmir Ikhwan — a pro-India militia — kidnapped 19
journalists and threatened to kill six of them unless the editors
of Srinagar’s major Urdu-language dailies presented themselves
before the militia’s leader. All nineteen were released unharmed
later the same day, following the intervention of the Rashtriya
Rifles commando unit (see IFEX alert dated 9 July 1996).
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
Shaban, and to apprehend and prosecute those responsible
in this case
Appeals To
His Excellency H.D. Deve Gowda
Prime Minister
South Block
New Delhi 110 011
India
Fax: +91 11 3016857
Department of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs
New Delhi 110 001
India
Fax: +91 11 3015750
Please copy appeals to the originator if possible.
