Things are worse for local journalists. In Srinagar, they have to lie to get past paramilitary check-posts that have sprung up. Saying that one is a journalist is not a good answer. “I am the relative of a patient admitted at the local hospital,” they often say. Some venture outside to report only after 9 pm, when the forces recede to the barracks and the restriction on movement relaxes. And yet, uncertainty hangs in the air. “We’re leaving our offices but we do not know whether or when we’ll return,” says Bashaarat Masood, a journalist with The Indian Express in Srinagar. The forces, he says, often chooses to arbitrarily disallow civilians from taking certain routes.