Srinagar, Jul 09 : Refuting Kashmir Editors’ Guild’s (KEG) latest statement about the establishment of the first Kashmir Press club in Srinagar wherein the outfit boosted to have set- up first ever press club here, the journalist fraternity on Tuesday termed the statement as laughable and rubbished the claim.
While most of the journalists expressed their reservations about the statement on various social media sites , others took strong exception to the distortion of the history by the so-called outfit at a time when the elections for various executive posts of the Kashmir press club are in the offing.
A senior journalist and presidential candidate for the upcoming KPC elections, Zulfikar, in a statement said that the Kashmiri journalists won’t allow such distortion of the history by any individual or group who intend to capture KPC and make it their personal fiefdom.
“Our effort will be to make the club attractive and pleasant abode for the journalists,” he said.
The senior journalist said that unfortunately some elements were hell bent to make the club a hub of politics to achieve their individual gains like bargaining for more advertisements from government.
“We will not allow this to happen,” said Majid, who is Kashmir Bureau Chief of Deccan Herald.
Majid, who is contesting election for the post of president at KPC as an independent candidate, ridiculed at alliances of various journalist bodies, terming them “Milawat and Mahamilawat” in his manifesto.
Another senior journalist, Majid Hyderi also expressed dismay at the statement of editors’ association saying that such lies were never expected from any responsible editors’ association which was supposed to set standards of journalistic ethics.
He said it was veteran journalist Muhammad Saleem Pandit who first took the possession of the government building situated at Poloview and created a press club, braving all the odds and difficulties. “The KEG members need to refresh their memory and recall that Club came in the existence only when Saleem Pandit pursued with the authorities to get it registered as society under societies Act,” he said.
The founder president Saleem pandit even persuaded the authorities to repair the building, which was not otherwise the mandate of the government.
“KPC needs to be kept out of such dirty politics and false claims by the Editors’ guild,” Majid said. (KNS)
