The Press Club of India and rights groups have expressed concern about the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s order asking The Caravan magazine to take down an article about civilian deaths in Jammu and Kashmir allegedly in Army custody.

On Wednesday, the Press Club of India said that the government’s actions against The Caravan “gravely infringes Freedom of Press, which has seen a serious slide in the past few years”. The journalists’ association added that India’s press freedom ranking of 161 out of 180 countries is “a testimony of this fact and no amount of ‘rejection’ by the government can alter this truth”.

On Tuesday, the magazine removed the article “Screams from the Army Post”, published on February 1, from its website hours after the ministry issued the order under Section 69 of the Information Technology Act. The article was about the alleged deaths of three civilians and the torture of several others while in Army custody in Jammu and Kashmir on December 22.

Section 69 of the Act allows the Centre to issue content-blocking orders to online intermediaries if the content is deemed a threat to national security, sovereignty or public order.

The magazine has, however, said it will challenge the ministry’s order.

On December 22, three civilians were found dead in Poonch, near the site of a suspected militant attack the previous day that killed four soldiers. The civilians were part of a group of persons allegedly taken into custody by the Army for questioning about the attack.

A first information report in connection with the deaths of the three civilians and injuries to others was filed on January 22 at the Surankote police station in Poonch under Indian Penal Code sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder).

The case was registered after a 29-second video, purportedly showing soldiers stripping the three men and sprinkling red chilli powder on them, was shared on social media.

The Jammu and Kashmir government had acknowledged the deaths in a social media post, but did not provide an explanation for how they occurred.

The Army has ordered a Court of Inquiry to investigate the circumstances that led to the deaths of the civilians.

The attack on an Army convoy on December 21 resulted in the deaths of four soldiers identified as Naik Birender Singh, Naik Karan Kumar, Rifleman Gautam Kumar and Rifleman Chandan Kumar.

On December 27, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met the families of the three civilians and assured them justice.

On Wednesday, the Press Club of India urged the government to withdraw its take down order. “The Caravan reported on an important story and the people of the country have the right to know,” the Press Club said in a statement.

The organisation also said that it supports the statement by the magazine’s Executive Editor Hartosh Singh Bal: “This is a fundamental challenge to our right to report the truth, the citizens right to know the truth. It cannot and will not go uncontested.”

Human right organisation Amnesty India said that instead of carrying out an independent investigation into the allegations of human rights violations reported by The Caravan, the Indian government had censored the magazine.

“Highlighting rights abuses by Indian authorities is not a threat to the nation,” Amnesty India said in a social media post on Tuesday. “The government of India must stop misusing laws to censor journalists and crackdown on dissent in the country.”

The Internet Freedom Foundation said that it was “deeply perturbed by the arbitrary and opaque actions being taken that disproportionately impact one’s right to free speech and right to practice one’s profession”. “We have also filed an RTI [right to information application] seeking answers to these questions,” the digital rights organisation said in a social media post on Wednesday.

Also read: ‘They died in front of my eyes’: Eyewitness recounts torture of Poonch villagers in Army custody