{"id":53887,"date":"2025-08-09T00:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/53887\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T00:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:39:07","slug":"police-raid-shops-after-india-imposed-book-ban-dw-08-07-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/53887\/","title":{"rendered":"Police raid shops after India-imposed book ban \u2013 DW \u2013 08\/07\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Police in the Indian-administered <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/kashmir\/t-18172268\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kashmir<\/a>\u00a0region carried out raids on book stores after the government banned 25 books, over what it called\u00a0&#8220;exciting secessionism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The government accused the authors of the banned books \u2014 who include Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, as well as\u00a0academics \u2014 of &#8220;playing a critical role in misguiding the youth&#8221; against <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/india\/t-18996071\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">India<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>How did Kashmiri separatists respond to the book ban?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The operation targeted materials promoting secessionist ideologies or glorifying terrorism,&#8221; police said in a social media statement. &#8220;Public cooperation is solicited to uphold peace and integrity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq condemned the ban, saying it &#8220;only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding&#8221; of the Indian government, also calling the decision &#8220;authoritarian.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Banning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts,&#8221; Farooq posted on his X account.<\/p>\n<p>Why is India banning books in Kashmir?<\/p>\n<p>Kashmir saw last year the first local elections since New Delhi stripped the region of its special status in 2019 and divided it into two territories.<\/p>\n<p>The vote\u00a0brought to power a <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/what-can-kashmirs-new-government-achieve-in-the-face-of-new-delhis-control\/a-70579726\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">largely powerless government<\/a>, with India&#8217;s top administrator in Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, still wielding substantial authority in the region as the national government&#8217;s representative.<\/p>\n<p>The order banning the books was issued on the sixth anniversary of India&#8217;s imposition of direct rule over Kashmir.<\/p>\n<p>India has been <a rel=\"noopener follow nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2024\/07\/31\/india-repression-persists-jammu-and-kashmir\" title=\"External link \u2014 accused of repression and human rights abuses in Kashmir\">accused of repression and human rights abuses in Kashmir<\/a> in an attempt to silence dissent.<\/p>\n<p>Edited by: Rana Taha<\/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&hellip;\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-53887","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\/53887","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=53887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53887\/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=53887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}