{"id":51377,"date":"2025-08-07T22:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T22:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/51377\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T22:58:09","slug":"police-raids-shops-after-india-imposed-book-ban-dw-08-07-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/51377\/","title":{"rendered":"Police raids shops after India-imposed book ban \u2013 DW \u2013 08\/07\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police in the Indian-administered Kashmir<\/a>\u00a0region carried out raids on book stores after the government banned 25 books, over what it called\u00a0“exciting secessionism.”<\/p>\n

The government accused the authors of the banned books \u2014 who include Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, as well as\u00a0academics \u2014 of “playing a critical role in misguiding the youth” against India<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier in February, authorities carried out a similar raid, seizing\u00a0books including Islamic literature\u00a0from homes and shops in the Muslim-majority region, disputed between India and neighboring Pakistan since their 1947 independence from British rule.<\/p>\n

What else do we know about the book ban?<\/p>\n

“The operation targeted materials promoting secessionist ideologies or glorifying terrorism,” police said in a social media statement. “Public cooperation is solicited to uphold peace and integrity.”<\/p>\n

Separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq condemned the ban, saying it “only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding” of the Indian government, also calling the decision “authoritarian.”<\/p>\n

“Banning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts,” Farooq posted on his X account.<\/p>\n

Kashmir saw last year the first local elections since New Delhi stripped the region of its special status in 2019. The vote\u00a0brought to power a largely powerless government, with India’s top administrator in Kashmir, Lt Gov. Manoj Sinha, still wielding substantial authority in the region as the national government’s representative.<\/p>\n

The order banning the books was issued on the sixth anniversary of India’s imposition of direct rule over Kashmir.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Rana Taha<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in the Indian-administered Kashmir\u00a0region carried out raids on book stores after the government banned 25 books, over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[457,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-51377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}