The questioning of two journalists by the security agencies in connection with the publication of news regarding a strike call issued by the banned Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front has once again brought to the fore the challenges faced by the media fraternity in Kashmir. The two journalists were summoned to a detention centre in Srinagar and one of them, who has been quoted by various media outlets, has said that the investigators wanted to know the email address from which he had got the JKLF statement. The government seems to have taken the publication of the statement with a pinch of salt, given that the top leadership of the outfit is languishing in various prisons across the country. The Jammu and Kashmir Police have even filed a case against the already banned outfit and if sources are to be believed, a manhunt has also been launched to nab the remaining activists and leaders who seem to be working underground and are running the operations of the outfit. While both the journalists have been let off for now, the detention has revealed the pulls and pressures faced by the media in Kashmir. In a meeting on Monday, February 10 by the Kashmir Press Club, a prominent body of working journalists in the Valley, concern was expressed over the “attempts being made to prevent media from operating freely” following the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5. "This is evident from the prolonged six-month internet shutdown in the region since August 5. As if that was not enough, physical attacks, threats and summons to journalists are being employed by security agencies to intimidate journalists," the KPC said in a statement after the meeting. Calling the questioning of journalists on “flimsy grounds” as a “routine exercise”, the journalist body has termed it as a “damning verdict on the appalling condition in which the media is operating" in Kashmir. This needless controversy has earned a bad name for the government at a time when another delegation of foreign envoys is set to visit Jammu and Kashmir. The issue could have been avoided, had the security agencies treated the matter with more discretion and care. While there can be many motivations for a journalist to publish the statement of a banned outfit, detention is not the answer. It would have been more appropriate had the investigators taken the journalist bodies on board. This way, a pointless controversy could have been averted.