Was the Ban on Social Media For Govt Employees Triggered By A Conscientious Cop in Kashmir?

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Senior Superintendent of Police, Shailendra Mishra is in the midst of a controversy for doing little more than urging a re-look at the reasons for militancy with a less jaundiced, and perhaps a more sensitive eye. The state Director General of Police S.P.Vaid has asked him for an official explanation for describing growing militancy in the state, the result of “our collective failure.”

The IPS officer who is commanding an armed battalion in Jammu and Kashmir said this at a time when the government was patting itself on the back for killing 200 militants in encounters in the state. This, however, was probably not intentional but part of a position for reconciliation and peace in the Valley that most officials, even in the Army, have spoken of in the past. Mishra for instance has expressed similar thoughts in the past, even urging a meeting of the Brahmin Sabha outside Jammu and Kashmir to “come to Kashmir, embrace the people, understand them, do not look at them with suspicion.”

Unfortunately for him the clips on this issue went viral, and led to hectic responses on the social media. Mishra has been a fairly low key police officer, not seeking publicity.

Portraying a sensitivity that the current establishment in Jammu and Kashmir appears to have little room for Mishra has said earlier that no one could doubt that the state was an integral part of India, a limb of the body. But what if the the limb was ailing, was injured and needed the right, focused treatment . ”If a person has a kidney problem the doctor will not treat his heart,” the police officer said.

Mishra has been keen for people outside Kashmir to understand the alienation, and help bring Kashmiris back into the fold as it were. “We are bleeding in Kashmir,” he has said emphasising the need to make the state whole again. He said militancy reflected the failure of the state to listen, it was a cry of help, for attention. Mishra maintained that the system often works against the people, and it was true that all do not turn towards militancy. But when they do, it reflects a collective failure and has to be dealt with as such.



The police officer has spoken with pride about the police service. In the context of Jammu and Kashmir he said that the police jawan of this state in particular was a true desh bhakt, a desh premi. He said that the Army soldier was always lauded for his nationalism and sacrifice, but conversely when the JK policeman went home, he was socially ostracised, his house was stoned. And as in the case of the territorial army soldier Irfan Dar, he was dragged outside his home and killed.

After his video was shared widely on the social media eliciting a critical response from the government, Mishra said he had spoken in his personal capacity. And not as a police officer.

It is shortly after this that the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir passed the controversial order---reported in The Citizen earlier as well---banning all government employees from using the social media.

The badly worded order issued by the Jammu and Kashmir Governor stated, “no government employee shall engage in any criminal, dishonest, immoral or notoriously disgraceful conduct on social media which may be prejudicial to the government. Hey shall also not use their personal social media accounts for any political acti vity or endorse the posts or tweets or blogs of any political fogure and also shall not use their accounts in a manner that could reasonably be construed to imply that the Government endorss or sactions their personal activities in any matter whatsoever. They shall also not post inflammatory, extraneous messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of disrupting normal, on topic discussion.”