New Delhi: Kashmir Media Service (KMS), a Pakistan-based news portal, has been amplifying content linked to The Resistance Front (TRF) under the guise of Kashmir-focused news coverage, ThePrint has learnt. The TRF, a wing of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), had initially claimed responsibility for the terror attack in Pahalgam last year.
Sources in the Indian intelligence establishment told ThePrint that the platform, allegedly spreading misinformation and propaganda aimed at fuelling anti-India sentiment and promoting the Kashmiri separatist narrative, is funded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and operates out of Gujranwala in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
They said the platform, which has been on the radar of security agencies, is run by a group of individuals, most of them Kashmiris, who had earlier joined terrorist ranks and later exfiltrated to Pakistan.
“This is an era of information warfare, and Pakistan has been at the forefront of it. KMS is run by a group of editors who are local Kashmiris and understand the pulse of people in the Valley. They craft content accordingly to push anti-India narratives, influence young minds, and radicalise them,” one source told ThePrint.
“They not only portray Indian actions in Kashmir negatively while glorifying separatist leaders like those from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, but also publish unverified claims, such as exaggerated troop numbers or fabricated casualty figures during protests or any unrest,” the source said, adding that these reports are then amplified by Pakistani media outlets like Dawn and Geo News.
Sources revealed that key contributors to KMS are Raies Mir, associate editor from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), a native of Kashmir’s Sopore, and Mukhtar Baba, a native of Srinagar who currently lives in Pakistan.
Others include Chief Editor Mohammad Raza Malik and Arif Hussain from Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, multiple sources revealed.
According to a police source, Raies Mir regularly contributes to the “Human Rights” column in Kashmir Insight, a magazine published by KMS, where he presents “skewed and false accounts of alleged human rights violations”.
Mukhtar Baba, a former journalist, is also a key contributor to the KMS, multiple sources revealed.
According to the second source, Baba has previously worked with local newspapers, including Greater Kashmir and Tameel Irshad. To maximise his influence, in the early 1990s, he started operating as a self-styled district commander of the banned militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen in Kashmir.
Baba, the source further said, spent considerable time in Turkey, and in November 2022, he issued threats to Kashmiri journalists through social media, accusing them of siding with New Delhi. These threats were linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its offshoot, TRF. There are also two cases registered against him in J&K under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
“He not only participates in ISI-sponsored international webinars and campaigns but also works on recruiting Kashmiri youth through networks linked to the TRF and other militant affiliates,” the source said.
‘Part of ISI’s information warfare’
According to the source, the primary objective of the KMS is to “disseminate and misinformation to mislead both international and domestic audiences”.
KMS, this source said, is one among several ISI-backed psychological operations (psy-ops) tools designed to create content that vilifies India. “Pakistan’s ISI is allegedly funding the platform as part of its broader information warfare strategy to propagate anti-India narratives and amplify separatist messaging.”
“It publishes distorted reports on alleged human rights violations since 1989 and refers to Kashmir as ‘Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)’,” the source said.
Investigations into the portal’s operations have also revealed links with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) as well as networks based in Rawalpindi, the source added.
‘Kashmiris’ running the show
Investigations into the functioning of the portal revealed that key people running the operations of KMS are actually Kashmiris.
According to sources in the security establishment, Raies was originally from Sopore, Baramulla, but currently works out of Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK).
He completed his Master’s from Aligarh Muslim University in 1988, following which he was appointed as an ad hoc lecturer and posted at Government Degree College in Sopore, police records show.
In the 1990s, he went to Pakistan for illegal arms and ammunition training, a source said.
According to police records, he returned to India in 1992 and moved to Bangalore for business. He stayed there for almost nine years.
“It was in 2000, he got married and then travelled to Pakistan along with his wife on a Visitor Travel Document (VTD) via the Wagah border and has not returned since,” he said.
Similarly, Altaf Hussain Wani, chairman of the Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR), a non-profit organisation, also allegedly contributes articles to KMS referring to the “Kashmir freedom movement”, the source said.
Wani, 61, has a Master’s and B.Ed. degree, and was employed as a teacher at a government school in Kupwara.
“He was affiliated with the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), and it was in 1990 that he illegally crossed the LoC to obtain arms training in Pakistan,” the second source said. “He returned to the Kashmir Valley in 1991 and was working for the JKLF till 1994. During this time, he sent a lot of Kashmiri youth to PoJK for military training.”
In 1994, he again exfiltrated to PoJK and has not returned since, the source said.
Besides Kashmiri faces, other key KMS editors are Pakistan-based journalists Mohammad Raza Malik, Humayun Aziz Sandeela and Benazir Khan, who write articles and commentary for the portal on the Kashmir issue, “highlighting malicious and false stories of alleged human rights violations and political developments in Jammu and Kashmir.”
“Their articles advocate the secession of Kashmir from India and also glorify terrorist actions in the Kashmir Valley,” the source said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)