On the evening of August 4 15 ebullient reporters and editors of a web portal in Srinagar were working furiously on keyboards of their computers, writing out stories that would reflect the uncertainty and concerns among local residents that had been witness to a massive month-long build-up of security forces.

Then suddenly, both broadband and mobile internet were shut. Reporters and editors were cut off from each other like the rest of the people. The result was that nothing could be published the next day amid the curfew and communications gag. The publication became another victim of an information black hole created by the state-imposed lock down.

August 5 came as a deathblow for the Free Press Kashmir, a web portal which also came out with a weekly print magazine. It was the same for the handful of other news portals that has shut shop since, and around 300 newspapers and magazines whose functioning has been curbed because of the communications blockade.

That day, the communications shutdown and continued internet blockade thereafter halted Free Press Kashmir’s functioning, both online and offline. The publications’ office in Jehangir Chowk, Srinagar, has remained closed since then.

“After August 5, we couldn’t even contact our staff for a long time due to the communications blockade, leave alone updating the site with the latest news,” said 30-year-old Qazi Zaid, the editor of Free Press Kashmir, who is now in Delhi trying to figure out if the site can be revived after internet services are fully restored in the Valley.

“I still don’t have any idea about many of our reporters and writers with whom we lost touch after August 5. How could we work under such circumstances?” he said.

Another editor associated with the publication said the site was being run by a small team of young professionals and journalists who’d left their jobs and moved back to Kashmir to help start the online venture.

“After August 5, it was impossible to run the site as the internet is critical to run an online venture,” he said. “We also lost touch with our core team due to the communications gag and the site couldn’t be updated from August 5. By the time some phones started working, many reporters and other staff members had either moved out of Kashmir or stopped working.”

Voices of people

In little over three years, Free Press Kashmir’s well-designed website published a variety of textual and multimedia content, attracting readers in and out of Kashmir. It reported and promoted Kashmir’s narrative from the ground up, while also covering society, consistently reporting on gender issues and concerns of minorities.

“While international media looks at Kashmir from a breaking news perspective and the domestic media from a very state-centric position, both are top-down approaches. Free Press Kashmir saw and filled this gap that told human interest stories from the ground,” Zaid explained.