Srinagar: Veteran journalist and Rising Kashmir editor Shujaat Bukhari and his two personal security officers (PSOs) were shot dead by terrorists outside the newspaper’s office in the heart of Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital on Thursday, police officials said. Fifty-three-year-old Bukhari was shot dead soon after he boarded his car from his office located at Press Enclave in the heart of the city centre — Lal Chowk.
Police said in a statement that terrorists this evening fired upon senior journalist and editor-in-chief of the daily, Rising Kashmir, Shujaat Bukhari at Press Enclave.
“While Shujaat Bukhari was travelling in a car near Press Enclave, he was fired (upon) indiscriminately which resulted in instant death of Bhukari and a PSO who was with him. The other PSO who was shifted to the hospital in critical condition has succumbed to his injury,” the statement said.
“Preliminary investigation...indicates this as a terror attack. Police is investigating the case and condemn this gruesome terror act,” the statement said. The unidentified militants, believed to be three in number, were waiting as it is believed that they had the knowledge about the time Bukhari was to leave office. They fired indiscriminately on the vehicle carrying him and fled on a motorcycle along with a weapon of a Personal Security Officer (PSO) Abdul Hamid, who was also killed on the spot.
Meanwhile, the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) strongly condemned the assassination of Bhukari. In a statement issued on Thursday, IJU president S.N. Sinha, secretary-general Amar Devulapalli and vice-president Sabina Inderjit said by killing Shujaat Bhukari the militants had sought to silence the voice of sanity and reason in the volatile state where the media and the working journalists were under tremendous stress sandwiched between the militants and the security forces.
Bukhari is survived by his wife and one son and a daughter. The Editors Guild of India said the killing of the senior journalist is a “new low in a rapidly deteriorating environment” for media persons in J&K and called upon the state government to ensure their safety and bring to book the culprits. It said an attack on a journalist challenges the very foundations of a free press and vibrant democracy and more so in a state like J&K that is going through militancy.
