ON March 13, 2025, the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), a civil liberties organisation based in Delhi, issued a statement strongly condemning the coordinated raid conducted by the Jammu and Kashmir police on bookstores across Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir last week. According to PUDR, 668 books have been unlawfully seized in Kashmir amidst rising concerns about freedom of expression, misuse of legal provisions, and a tense political climate in the region.
Illegal seizure of books
PUDR expressed “strong reservations” against the targeting of books published by Markazi Maktaba Islami Publishers, a New Delhi-based publishing house affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, one of the largest Islamic and political organizations in the Indian subcontinent. Most of the seized books were authored by Abul Ala Maududi, a prominent 20th-century Islamic scholar and the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami. The police have justified the seizure under Section 126 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), claiming that the raids were based on “credible intelligence of the sale and distribution of literature promoting the ideology of a banned organization.”
