[Kashmir has long been embroiled in bloody conflict between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, which both claim parts of the rugged, Himalayan territory. In three decades of fighting, tens of thousands of people have been killed and injured, and in the last couple of years, the conflict has worsened.]
By
Sameer Yasir, Kai Schultz and Hari Kumar
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Relatives
and friends of the journalist Shujaat Bukhari after his killing on Thursday
in
Srinagar.CreditMukhtar Khan/Associated Press
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SRINAGAR,
Kashmir — A well-known
journalist in Kashmir who worked to bring stability and peace to the
mountainous, war-afflicted region, was shot to death on Thursday.
The journalist, Shujaat Bukhari, was leaving
his office in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, when three
assailants riding on a motorcycle shot him and two of his bodyguards, the
police said.
Mr. Bukhari, 50, was hit in the head and
abdomen and died shortly afterward. Both of his bodyguards were also killed. It
was the first time in nearly a decade that a journalist has been murdered in
Kashmir, a region that has long divided India and Pakistan.
“He’s a true martyr to the cause of
courageous journalism,” Shekhar Gupta, a prominent Indian journalist, wrote on
Twitter.
Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, a state lawmaker in
Kashmir, said by telephone that the attack was “very meticulous, well planned,
targeted.”
The police have released security-camera
images of the attackers, but they have not been identified and no militant
group active in Kashmir has claimed responsibility.
Mr. Tarigami said Mr. Bukhari, one of the
region’s most recognizable journalists, was targeted for a reason.
“They want to send a message,” he said.
“There will be a demoralizing effect on the journalist community.”
Kashmir has long been embroiled in bloody
conflict between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, which both
claim parts of the rugged, Himalayan territory. In three decades of fighting, tens
of thousands of people have been killed and injured, and in the last couple of
years, the conflict has worsened.
Earlier on Thursday, the United Nations
released its first report on human rights violations in Kashmir, calling for an
international investigation into accounts of torture, disappearances and sexual
violence committed by India and Pakistan.
Mr. Bukhari, who is survived by a wife and
two children, was seen as a centrist and a strong voice for peace. He had been
attacked in the past, including in an abduction attempt nearly a decade ago.
For over a decade, Mr. Bhukari was a
columnist and the editor in chief of Rising Kashmir, a leading English-language
daily published in Srinagar. He published work in Kashmiri, Urdu and English
and worked for many years as a correspondent for The Hindu, one of India’s
major newspapers.
Mr. Bukhari was also attuned to the political
pulse of the region, organizing conferences in the United States and India to
discuss ways to resolve the Kashmir conflict.
In a February interview with The New York
Times, Mr. Bukhari said that violent clashes between Indian security forces and
protesters in the area had hardened many Kashmiri youth, whose views had
shifted from “anti-India to hate India.”
One of his last columns for Rising Kashmir
concerned the Ramadan cease-fire. Mr. Bukhari wrote that the “continuous grind
of violence” was becoming unbearable. The cease-fire was a “glimmer of hope for
the common people,” he wrote, but there was much more ground to cover.
Journalists and politicians across party
lines offered condolences and said the attack was a blot on India’s human
rights record.
“Terrorism has hit a new low with Shujaat’s
killing,” Mehbooba Mufti, the chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir,
wrote on Twitter. “We must unite against forces seeking to undermine our
attempts to restore peace.”
As night fell in Srinagar on Thursday, a
group of journalists, some of them sobbing, assembled near the murder scene,
trading stories about the man who had mentored so many of them. Among them was
Rashid Maqbool, a longtime friend of Mr. Bukhari’s, who called him one of the
most compassionate journalists he had ever known.
“His killing has made a hole in my heart,” he
said.
Sameer Yasir reported from Srinagar, Kashmir,
and Kai Schultz and Hari Kumar from New Delhi. Maria Abi-Habib contributed
reporting from New Delhi.