'Centre Wants To Crush Journalism': Kashmiri Journalist Stopped From Flying To Sri Lanka

Officials at the Indira Gandhi International Airport had barred him from boarding his flight to Colombo, said Hassan on his unverified Twitter handle.

New Delhi: A Kashmiri journalist Aakash Hassan was on Tuesday stopped by authorities at the Delhi airport from traveling to Sri Lanka for a reporting assignment, citing restrictions imposed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police, officials said on Wednesday. Aakash, who hails from the Anantnag region of South Kashmir, was on his way to the island nation when his boarding pass was cancelled and he was offloaded from the aircraft. 

Officials at the Indira Gandhi International Airport had barred him from boarding his flight to Colombo, said Hassan on his Twitter handle.

"I was headed to report on the current crises in the country," Aakash, who writes for the UK-based The Guardian newspaper, said.

Aakash's passport and boarding pass were taken by the immigration officials and was forced to sit in a room for nearly four hours before an airline official informed him that his luggage had been offloaded on directions from the department, he said.

"I was questioned by two officials about my background, travel purpose," Aakash said, adding after nearly five hours, he was handed his passport and boarding pass with a red rejection stamp that read "cancelled without prejudice".

Meanwhile, People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday said it is no secret that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government wants to crush journalism, the fourth pillar of democracy.

"Immediately after CJIs remarks on the role of journalists in a democracy, @AakashHassan was barred from travelling abroad. Its no secret that GOI wants to crush the very backbone and fourth pillar of our democracy because of its intolerance to the truth," the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said in a tweet.

Authorities in the Jammu and Kashmir Police also confirmed that Akash had been put on a no-fly list.

This is not the first case of barring a journalist from travelling abroad. Before this, Pulitzer-winning Kashmiri photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo was stopped when she was headed to Paris to go to attend a book launch event and participate in a photography exhibition.

(With PTI inputs)