JKLF (Yasin) Acting Chief Condemns Books' Ban As Assault On Free Thought, Historical Truth

Faizan Hashmi Published August 08, 2025 | 12:50 PM

MIRPUR (AJK) , (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point news - 8th Aug, 2025) US-based Acting Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (Yasin Malik) , Raja Muzaffar, has issued a strongly condemned Delhi’s installed puppet administration of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) state administration’s recent order banning 25 books, including works by Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy and constitutional scholar A.G. Noorani .

The censorship order, issued on August 5th by the puppet Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, claimed the books promote “false narratives and secessionism.” Raja Muzaffar calls this justification “a dangerous distortion of democratic values” and “an attempt to criminalize historical inquiry and suppress dissent.”

“This is not about protecting sovereignty—it’s about controlling narrative,” Muzaffar said in a statement released to the media here on Friday.

“The banned books are not incitements to violence; they are reflections of lived experience, scholarly critique, and democratic engagement. Banning them is an admission of fear—not strength", he said.

The timing of the ban, coinciding with the anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370, further underscores its symbolic intent to erase Kashmiri identity and memory.

Muzaffar called on civil society, academics, and global human rights defenders to demand the immediate revocation of the order and to stand in solidarity with Kashmir’s right to read, reflect, and resist.

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