The Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG) strongly condemned the dastardly killing of senior Journalist Shujaat Bukhari, Editor Rising Kashmir. It is yet another shameful attack on the media in Kashmir that has been surviving with such attacks since 1989.
Shujaat was shot dead while he was leaving from his office minutes ahead of Iftaar when a group of gunmen, apparently waiting for him to get into his car, fired a volley of bullets on his vehicle. The firing continued for a few minutes and triggered scare.
Media persons contacted police to seek help. It took police some time to reach the spot and evacuate the injured to the hospital.
KEG, while strongly condemning the act, has termed the killing as dastardly and a great loss to the media fraternity in the state.
Media in Kashmir has been operating in a testing situation in Kashmir for all these decades of crisis. The intermittent killings and attacks have been adding to the crisis in which the media was barely surviving.
Shujaat has been a senior journalist who rose from a reporter. He had had a long inning in The Hindu, which he left at the position of senior assistant editor to take over the Rising Kashmir. He reported Kashmir turmoil since 1990s and was well respected in the fraternity for his contributions he made to the institution of media. One of the prominent faces of the media, Shujaat, was one of the few journalists who was a keen lover of art and culture and headed the Adbi Markaz Kamraz for many years.
Shujaat has survived a serious heart attack only two years back. He is survived by his wife and two kids, a son and a daughter.
In an emergency meeting, the KEG strongly condemned the brutal killing. KEG demands speedy investigation into the attack so that killers are identified and punished.
KEG wants to convey that killing journalists will not further the cause of any side but will perpetuate the crisis further. At the same time, we need to convey that Kashmir media has survived the worst situations and will survive this dastardly murder as well.