The Jammu and Kashmir police released a statement on Thursday revealing that the plan to murder journalist Shujaat Bukhari was hatched in Pakistan and was executed by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists, DNA has reported. Bukhari was the editor-in-chief of media house “Rising Kashmir” and was gunned down in Srinagar on 14 June.
As per a quote by IGP Kashmir SP Pani, of the four identified terrorists, Sajad Gul is based out of Pakistan and Azad Ahmed Malik and Muzafar Ahmad Bhat are LeT operatives. The report also claimed that J&K police would be approaching the courts to get non bailable warrants to nail the accused.
A Times of India report stated that the police also released the photograph of the four accused. Gul is being dubbed as the mastermind of the crime and is also believed to be associated with the LeT. Gul who had earlier spent some time in jail in connection with a Delhi terror case, is reported to have gone to Pakistan in 2017 on a fraudulent passport. A lookout notice has been issued to try and trace him.
According to the report, IGP Pani also claimed that an online campaign was active against Bukhari in form of a Facebook page named – Kadwa sach Kashmir, website named – kashmirfight.wordpress.com, and a Twitter handler named Ahmed Khalid.
These accounts, the content for which was posted from Pakistan, were believed to have been spreading hateful and malicious content against Bukhari.