Only half a dozen newspapers hit the stands today in Kashmir

Srinagar, Oct 7 (UNI) Only half a dozen newspapers, out of more than 40 english and urdu dailies, hit the stands today as the media remained the most affected during the two-day curfew restrictions in the Kashmir valley.

President of the Kashmir Press Association Ghulam Hassan Kaloo said the authorities had issued inadequate number of curfew passes to newspapers.

He said the newspaper published could not be distributed on Sunday because of curfew as no curfew passes were issued to hawkers and distributors. We have suffered huge losses, he said and demanded permanent curfew passes for mediapersons in the valley.

Chief Editor of a leading urdu daily '' Srinagar Times'' said untill the authorities provided sufficient curfew passes to all the staff members, publishing a newspaper was impossible. We need each worker attached with the printing of newspaper, he said.

Editor of another leading daily ''Aftab'' Zahoor Hashmi said we were forced to close the office after the authorities provided inadequate curfew passes.

The transmission of a local news channel '' SEN TV'', remained off the air. However, other local cable channels were not telecasting any news or current affairs programme for the past three days in the valley.

The District Magistrate (DM), Srinagar in his order on October 4 had stopped the transmission the channel in view of blatant violation of provisions of the cable TV Network regulation Act, 1995.

He said the local channel had telecast objectionable material with an objective to incite people to disturb public peace and tranquility.

This was the second time local channels were stopped from telecasting news and current affairs programmes. The channels had telecasted live Muzaffarabad, TRC, Eidgah and Pampore chalo marchs in August.

About a dozen mediapersons were injured after they were beaten by CRPF and police during these marches.

UNI BAS ASM RJ VC1635