As the national media continues its coverage of the controversy surrounding Kashmir’s first all-girls rock band Pragaash, journalists from the Valley believe the whole issue has been blown out of proportion. The national media, they said, are trying to propagate a negative image of Kashmir without paying much attention to facts.

The band, formed last year by teenage school students Farah Deeba (drummer), bass guitarist Aneeka Khalid and Noma Nazir (lead vocalist), decided to call it quits following a religious decree (fatwa) issued by Kashmir’s grand mufti, Bashir-u-Din, who called music “un-Islamic”.

The police on Tuesday lodged an FIR against unnamed persons for posting hateful comments and abusing the girls — all under 16 years — on Facebook after their first live performance in December last year at Srinagar.

Incidentally, most comments on the Facebook page (purportedly created by a critic) were posted back then — and not in the recent days, though the police took a kneejerk reaction only on Tuesday, after the issue made it to front pages and prime-time news.

Speaking to BBC, prominent author and journalist Mirza Waheed said, “They performed in just one concert organised by Indian security force, CRPF, but nothing (had) happened then. It was just a few nasty kids who opposed them, saying obnoxious things on Facebook. What happens then is a government-backed cleric issues a fatwa (religious  decree) and when it is debated on Indian TV one gets a notion of rabid Islam (pervading in the Valley), which is not the case.

“These girls are being used — the society didn’t issue any dictum against them... it was just (an) anonymous Facebook group.”

Bilal Handoo, a local journalist with English daily ‘Kashmir Life’ wrote, “A mountain has been made (out) of a molehill. ‘Threats’ were reported almost everywhere without making a distinction between criticism, hateful comments and the threats. The reportage (in the national press) suggested that they had cancelled their performances as if they had scores of events lined up.”

In his column, Handoo quoted the manager of the teen band, Adnan  Mantoo, saying, “Whenever a new thing happens in a society, especially related to music and fashion, such things (opposition) happen.”

“Please don’t heed the rumours; there is a misunderstanding. We did not quit,” base the band’s bass guitarist, Aneeqa, wrote on her Facebook page on Friday soon after the reports claimed that girls have succumbed to hate comments they received on Facebook.

Sheikh Saaliq, editor of thevoxkashmir.com, said, “I spoke to their manager over the phone hours after the story first broke; he told me they have no intention of quitting any time soon. He termed the report as mere hype, and added the band was planning to record an album soon.”

At a time the Centre has just snubbed the recommendation of the Justice Verma committee on AFSPA it is difficult to understand why the national media has shown so much interest in this issue, Saaliq said.  “There are more pressing issues here that need to be reported,” he added.