Being a photojournalist in Kashmir has always meant being caught in the crossfire. But today, the sense of fear is absolute

For 25-year-old Kashmiri photojournalist Syed Shahriyar Hussainy, work means being caught in the crosshairs. “Journalists and photographers in Kashmir are looked upon with suspicion, not just by the armed forces, but also by our own people,” he says.

His images of Kashmir are of pellet-riddled backs and of stone-pelters, of funerals of militants and of the Deewar-e-meherbani (the Wall of Kindness, where volunteers hang clothes or shoes for the poor) behind which stands a building with shattered windows. “Protesters think we are government agents, there to spy on them. The forces think we are sympathisers of the militants,” says Hussainy.

Hussainy vividly recalls the 2016 protests that erupted in the Valley after the death of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani. On September 4 that year, he, along with three other photographers, had walked to Rainawari in Srinagar where the protesters were assembling. “The police disrupted the procession. The photographers began to disperse. Then I spotted a policeman pointing a gun at us. He could clearly see we were photographers.” Hussainy took shelter in an alley. “My only instinct then was to save myself.”

He could see his colleague Zuhaib Maqbool, still shooting. “Soon there was the sound of pellets hitting the camera shutter, followed by Zuhaib’s screaming.” Maqbool had been partially blinded by a pellet in his left eye. As he bled, he still had the presence of mind to turn to Hussainy and say: “Take photos of me!”

“Violence is a regular affair here,” says Hussainy. “Earlier, it happened only in downtown Kashmir; now there is anger on every street corner, even among children.”

Covering the conflict in Kashmir, he says, can make you lose your mind: “You do the same thing every day, and you won’t be the same any more”. Diagnosed with dissociative disorder, Hussainy has been through extensive therapy. “There is a certain imbalance that occurs between work and life. After all, these are our own people we are talking about.”

Hussainy’s work has been published in Indian and international publications including Time and Le Monde. But he has no plans to leave Kashmir. “I have been here too long to leave.”

Hit by pellets

Eeshan Peer, another young photographer, can relate to Hussainy’s experience. He was hit by pellets while covering a protest for the weekly The Varmul Post in Baramulla district in May 2017. Peer had gone to cover an incident of stone pelting. “All of us journalists were wearing our identity cards and carrying cameras. But when we reached the spot, policemen charged at us with sticks and told us to leave.” When the journalists refused, the policemen started beating them. Peer broke both his legs. “The armed forces mostly don’t want the media around,” he says.

This hostility has been turned up several notches now. Today, says Peer, the fear and confusion is unprecedented. “There are protesters on the streets, but it’s not like 2016 — now there seems to be a looming sense of dread like never before.”

On August 16, days after the communications blackout, Peer left the Valley for Delhi. There are rumours doing the rounds, he says, that a list of journalists has been created and they could be arrested. “They can pick up anyone now.”

Manzoor, 54, from Downtown, Kashmir, was accused of having links with a militant organisation Al-umar Mujahideen, and allegedly tortured. His sister was abused and murdered. He is now mentally unstable and homeless. Photo: Waleed Shabir

Waleed Shabir, a fourth year BBA student and budding photographer, recounts an incident in Maisuma, Srinagar, of August 30, 2010: “There was a call for hartal, and there was hardly anyone on the streets. Some of my neighbours were playing carrom outside. Suddenly, a police constable approached and started firing pellets at them for no reason.” All of them were injured, while one of them, Yasir Rafiq Sheikh, 27, died later. He was a cousin of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Yasin Malik. The constable was suspended. Shabir says most security forces fire pellets when stones are hurled at them. “What does a man with a weapon do if he is pelted with stones? He uses it,” says Shabir. “They are only pawns of the government anyway.”

Young victims

Durdana Bhatt, a photojournalist with magazine Kashmir Life, recounts the horror of watching pellet-injured children. “I have seen children younger than 10 in Srinagar hospitals. Many of them have either lost their eyesight or have serious injuries in the abdomen or chest,” she says. “If you talk to the stone-pelters, they say they are protesting for self-determination and against the high-handedness of the security forces.”

A little girl with her mother on an empty street. Photo: Durdana Bhatt

Kamran Yousuf, 24, a freelance photojournalist, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in September 2017. The charge levelled against him was that he covered only the unrest in the State and not the government-initiated “developmental activity,” and hence was not a ‘real journalist’. He was also accused of stone-pelting and inciting violence. Yousef was granted bail in March 2018; with the additional sessions judge Tarun Sherawat commenting that the “mere presence of a journalist at the site of an incident” cannot implicate him for any offences that occurred there.

When I reach out to Yousuf, he says, ‘No Comments.’

“Do you know me?” he asks. I say I know of him as a photojournalist. “Google my name, you will get to know much more, and you will know why I cannot comment,” he says.

I do so, then text him back.

“Thanks for understanding,” he says.

shaoni.sarkar@thehindu.co.in