“Long before Shujaat Bukhari was assassinated, his character was assassinated. On social media, on media debates, on both sides of the border.”
Senior journalist and the founding editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan was among the many veterans and colleagues of the former Rising Kashmir editor, Shujaat Bukhari, present at a solidarity meet held in New Delhi’s Press Club to protest his assassination.
Bukhari (50) along with his two security guards was shot dead by three motorcycle-borne assailants outside his office at Srinagar on 14 June.
“Online Smear Campaigns Have Real Life Consequences”: Siddharth Varadarajan
Reminding the audience of the “real life consequences” of online smear campaigns and vilification on big media channels, Varadarajan said:
When a person like Shujaat Bukhari, with all his reasons and rationale, is labelled as “soft-separatist”, “pro-terrorist”, it intentionally or unintentionally creates a space for hidden forces to engage in active terrorism... Not necessarily because they believe in those allegations but in this cloak-and-dagger world, one can commit a crime and have it pinned on someone else. By labelling someone, you give the miscreants the space to commit such unspeakable crime.
He said, “Those who publicly vilified Shujaat in one way or the other share the burden of the responsibility of what has happened to Shujaat.”
Echoing Varadarajan’s thoughts on respecting arguments without abusing, senior journalist Nidhi Razdan said, “We may not agree with each other, can we stop the name-calling, the labelling?”
“It Is a Wake-Up Call”: Rahul Jalali
Defence expert and senior journalist Rahul Jalali, while reminiscing about Bukhari whom he had known for over three decades, told The Quint that journalists across the country need to be united against the animosity the profession is currently facing and demand stricter laws to protect themselves.
Recalling the murder of another senior journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2016, Jalali noted:
It is a wake-up call... Gauri Lankesh and now Shujaat. To do honest journalism, you need to be a liberal at heart, you need to have a social conscience. You need to care about the society and those who are downtrodden and speak up for them. Gauri Lankesh used to do that and even Shujaat, and both were eliminated. We need to protect our profession and protect ourselves.
“A Country Where Journalists Need Security Guards Doesn’t Speak Well About its Democracy”: Urmilesh
Joining the voices against Bukhari’s killing, senior journalist Urmilesh noted the dangers of reporting from a conflict zone. He said the biggest threat from doing journalism in a war-torn area is the unpredictability of what lies ahead.
Bukhari was considered an example of journalistic brilliance in the Valley and a 'voice of sanity’ in Kashmir. He was instrumental in organising several conferences for peace in the Kashmir Valley. Even the last reports Bukhari shared on his timeline were about the first United Nations report on human rights violations in Kashmir.
Bukhari is the 13th journalist who lost his life while reporting from Kashmir.
Asked about the State’s role in protecting its journalists, Urmilesh said:
If the state machinery has to protect the journalists in the society, it means democracy is in danger. The state should work towards strengthening the roots of its democratic values and journalists will be anyway naturally safe.
“We Demand Accountability”: 18 Media Organisation Draft a Joint Statement
In a joint statement-cum-resolution, Press Club of India, Indian Women's Press Corps, Press Association, Editors' Guild, South Asian Free Media Association, South Asian Women in Media, Indian Journalists' Union, National Union of Journalists, Foreign Correspondents' Club , Working News Camerapersons Association and All India Urdu Editors Conference said the “senseless murder” of Bukhari demanded accountability at various levels.
They said everyone in the country has the sovereign right to freedom of speech and expression, and that the “increasing intolerance” for such freedoms has the potential to "undermine the character and nature of democracy".
“We demand that the government of Jammu and Kashmir bring the perpetrators of this dastardly crime to book at the earliest. We demand that the government institute a separate inquiry into those who had launched a malicious campaign against Shujaat,” they said.
The cyber cell of the Union Home Ministry should look into all those IP addresses and the sources from where the malicious campaigns were conducted, the statement said.
The J&K police have already constituted a special investigation team (SIT) under the supervision of Deputy Inspector General (DIG), central Kashmir, to probe the killing.
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