Jammu/Srinagar : Former minister and senior BJP leader Lal Singh has warned Kashmiri journalists to draw a line between reporting facts and supporting terrorists or face the fate of Rising Kashmir editor Shujaat Bukhari, who was shot dead by militants. Singh’s statement drew condemnation from the Kashmir Editor’s Guild and the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference. The party said that this was a brazen attempt to muzzle media in Kashmir and that his “open threat” merited “immediate cognizance” by the state police.
“Kashmiri journalists have created an erroneous atmosphere and I would like to ask them to draw the line,” Singh had told reporters in Jammu yesterday. “You want to live like what happened to Basharat (Shujaat Bukhari)… Take care of yourselves and draw a line so that the brotherhood is not broken and it is maintained so that progress and
development (of the state) is ensured,” he said.
In a tweet on Saturday, the BJP MLA said, “There is need to draw a line between reporting facts and supporting terrorists and their sympathisers. Misinterpretation has become a norm and reporting facts a rarity. Journalistic freedom is absolute but not at the cost of nation and nationalism.”
Singh, who has started a campaign for a CBI probe into the Kathua rape-and-murder case after resigning from the previous PDP-led government in April, has over the past few months blamed the media, especially Kashmir-based journalists, for creating a “wrong perception” about the January incident.
Condemning the former minister’s remarks, a spokesman of the Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG) said in a statement, “Singh, who was earlier being termed as a serious sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease, has moved way ahead and issued a direct threat to the media in Kashmir.”
“Singh’s statement indicates that he holds some information about Bukhari’s murder and must be investigated. KEG reserves the right to lodge a police case against the lawmaker who, earlier as well, named a number of reporters for his fall from grace in wake of the Kathua probe, now in a trial stage,” the guild said.
Bukhari and his two personal security officers were shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside the newspaper’s office in the heart of Srinagar on June 14.
Earlier, NC vice president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah wrote on his Twitter account, “Dear journalists, your colleagues in Kashmir just got threatened by a @BJP4India MLA. It seems Shujaat’s death is now a tool for goons to use to threaten other journalists.”
Meanwhile, Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala described as shocking, shameful and reprehensible J&K’s BJP MLA Lal Singh threatening journalists. “Do BJP leaders have some special knowledge of the assassination,” Surjewala asked in a tweet. In another tweet he asked, “Will Amit Shahji answer in his (Jammu) rally if journalists in J&K have to fall in line for not being assassinated like Shujat Bukhari and only then “bhaichara” will be ensured? First they force media-houses to remove news qua Amit Shah. Now BJP MLAs openly issue threats. Shameful!”
The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party urged Governor N N Vohra to book and arrest former minister and BJP leader Choudhary Lal Singh.