Was journalist Shujaat Bukhari murdered by a Pakistani?

On Eid, senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari was murdered by 3 bike-borne terrorists. Who were they? Their identities have baffled the police.

Jammu Kashmir police on Wednesday identified three terrorists responsible for the killing of journalist Shujaat Bukhari who was shot dead by terrorists outside his office in Srinagar earlier this month. Two of the terrorists are locals, while the third is a Pakistani national, the police said.

The Pakistani national was identified as Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Naveed Jatt who managed to escape from police custody earlier this year from the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital in Srinagar.

The two locals are believed to be from one of the villages in south Kashmir. Police was trying to corroborate the evidence from the ground, they said.

The details about the plans to kill Bukhari surfaced during an investigation in one of the recent encounters at Kulgam during which police officials got evidence to suggest that Jatt was in the middle of the motorcycle on which three terrorists were seen on the CCTV footage minutes before gunning down the journalist on June 14, they said.

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They said a Pakistan-based blogger, a resident of Srinagar and now settled there, has also been identified. The blogger had started a hate campaign against Bukhari after he had attended Dubai conference last year.

While the police have accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of killing Bukhari, the terror outfit has denied it.

Veteran journalist and Rising Kashmir editor Bukhari and his PSOs were shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside the newspaper’s office in the heart of this Jammu and Kashmir summer capital on June 14.

Police earlier arrested a local who had escaped with a pistol belonging to one of Bukhari’s guards and two mobile phones belonging to the journalist.

“He appears to be a drug addict. He is still in our custody but he does not appear to be part of the terror conspiracy to assassinate Bukhari,” the source said.

Police have also identified a blogger who uploaded malicious posts against Bukhari.

“He is a Kashmiri militant presently in Pakistan from where he is operating the blog,” the source said.