In tragic news, senior journalist and editor of Rising Kashmir, Shujaat Bukhari, was shot dead by unknown assailants at the Press Enclave in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar on Thursday, 14 June. Bukhari, as well as his two Personal Security Officers, Hamid Chaudhary and Mumtaz Awan, was reportedly shot by 3-4 armed men.
Thousands gathered at Bukhari’s funeral, held in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla on Friday, 15 June. India, Pakistan and the United States have all condemned the attack on the veteran journalist, Chaudhary and Awan.
With journalists speaking about the impact of his death on the freedom of press, rising tensions in Kashmir and the increasing threats to journalists in the country, here’s how the Indian and International media reported Bukhari’s murder.
Foreign Media
Washington Post
In her column for The Washington Post, journalist Barkha Dutt has written a powerful piece headlined Will Shujaat Bukhari’s assassination finally force India to wake up?, where she says that it is more dangerous than ever to be a Journalist in India right now.
For Indians, Bukhari’s death is a reminder of two things: The situation in terrorism-torn Kashmir is sliding into a black hole of possibly no return. And second, it is more dangerous to be a journalist in India today than ever before.Barkha Dutt
She also called out the Indian media for being hypocritical in its coverage of Bukhari’s death. She said that while most of the television channels are reporting his death as an assault on freedom of press, they are the same channels that once carried out smear-campaigns against him for political and competitive reasons.
The New York Times
Reporting about the incident, The New York Times in an article headlined Kashmiri Journalist, a Voice for Peace and a Mentor to Many, Is Killed spoke about Bukhari as a “centrist and a strong voice for peace” in a conflict-ridden Kashmir.
It also quoted several journalists across the world – both known and unknown to Bukhari – in their responses to the veteran journalist’s death.
Local Media
Rising Kashmir
Bukhari’s newspaper, Rising Kashmir, ran a full front-page portrait of its founding editor, with the message: “You left all too sudden but you will always be our leading light with your professional conviction and exemplary courage. We won’t be cowed down by the cowards who snatched you from us. We will uphold your principle of telling the truth, howsoever unpleasant it may be. Rest in peace!”
Kashmir Reader
In a powerful piece headlined Threat to the independence of journalism, the Kashmir Reader strongly condemned the killing of Bukhari, and said that the “killing of a journalist is tantamount to leaving a society voiceless”.
Questioning the motive behind Bukhari’s killing, the newspaper added:
What made them, assailants, kill a person who would reflect the happenings on the ground and would use attributions to substantiate his opinion as and when he had any. Shujaat would write regular columns and wouldn’t hide his opinion unlike people in other fields as there is no scope for invincible methods in journalism. One has to understand that journalism can’t afford hypocrisy as everything produced is in the public domain.
National Media
The Indian Express
Speaking about the need to uphold the message of peace that came with the Ramzan ceasefire, The Indian Express’ article on Bukhari’s death, titled Silencing a voice, addresses the ongoing, core conflict in Kashmir, between the security forces and the militants.
“The first killing of a journalist in Kashmir in over a decade is an attack on free speech, on democracy and on the idea that the people of Kashmir deserve peace and a political solution to a complex and congealed crisis,” it says.
The Times of India
In a personal account on The Times of India, headlined My friends Shujaat and Gauri: valiant journalists who were murdered because the pen is so much mightier than the sword, where she speaks of her relationship with Bukhari, journalist Sagarika Ghosh said that he had fallen prey to the very violence that he was trying to bring to an end.
Those with free minds and powerful pens are threatened by those with fearful minds; those insecure cowards who have no argument, no counter ideas, reveal the emptiness, shallowness and sheer degraded evil of their so-called cause when they pull the gun on unarmed journalists.Sagarika Ghosh
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