Asiya Jeelani

India

In a stunning upset, India's voters surprised the media and the world by rejecting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalism in favor of the secular Indian National Congress party in general elections in May. However, despite the general disavowal of extremism at the polls, ethnic and religious tensions persisted in the world's largest democracy, posing onerous threats to journalists in 2004. The contested northern territory of Kashmir continued to be a particularly dangerous beat.

New York, September 27, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Saturday's attack on photographers Rafiq Maqbool of The Associated Press, and Amin War of the national newspaper The Tribune, who were beaten by police while covering a violent demonstration in Srinagar, the summer capital of war-torn Kashmir.

Maqbool and War were photographing as many as 100 activists from the militant separatist group, the Democratic Liberation Party (DLP), on September 25, when police turned on them and started beating them with rifle butts and bamboo batons, according to Maqbool. "The police just ignored the rioters. They, instead, starting thrashing us, even though we told them we were photojournalists," Maqbool told CPJ.

New York, April 22, 2004—A journalist was killed in a mine explosion in India-controlled Kashmir on Tuesday, April 20.

Asiya Jeelani died en route to the hospital after the van she was traveling in, which was being used by an elections monitoring team sent by a local umbrella organization, the Coalition of Civil Society, detonated an explosive device on a rural road in northern Kashmir.

Jeelani was a freelance journalist who frequently contributed to local newspapers. According to local sources, she was helping the Coalition prepare a report on its monitoring activities and may have been reporting on the elections as well. She was also a human rights activist who worked with several local nongovernmental organizations.