PARIS, June 12: International journalists’ rights organisation Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has protested to Indian authorities over the arbitrary arrest of Iftikhar Ali Geelani, the New Delhi bureau chief of the Kashmir Times and also correspondent for the Pakistani daily The Nation, but also in general over the regular roughing up by Indian officials of journalists attempting to do their job in Kashmir.

Mr Geelani is accused further more of being a spy in the pay of Pakistan.

In a letter to Indian Interior Minister Lal Krishna Advani, the RSF has called for the immediate release of Mr Geelani, and has suggested that his arrest was “an attempt to restrict coverage of events in Kashmir.”

According to RSF secretary general Robert Menard, “charging a Kashmiri journalist under the Official Secrets Act in present circumstances would seem an effort to intimidate any media which tries to report independently on the conflict in the province.”

According to RSF Asia-Pacific spokesman Vincent Brossel, Geelani was “charged under the secrets act and police were granted a further five days to hold him for questioning.”

Geelani was arrested on June 9 at his New Delhi home by tax department officers and police.