Shujaat Bukhari was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Srinagar in June 2018.
Shujaat Bukhari (1968 –2018) was a journalist from Jammu and Kashmir and the founding editor of Rising Kashmir, a Srinagar-based newspaper. He was instrumental in organising several Kashmir peace conferences and was part of the Track II diplomacy between India and Pakistan. Between 1997 and 2012 he was The Hindu’s correspondent in Srinagar and a regular contributor to Frontline. He was shot dead outside his office in the Press Enclave area of Srinagar on June 14, 2018. The extract is from a piece published on October 27, 2017.
The Concerned Group of Citizens (CCG) initiative was led by former Union Minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha. Accompanied by Air Vice Marshal (retd) Kapil Kak, former Chairperson of the National Minorities Commission Wajahat Habibullah, the journalist Bharat Bhushan, and the activist Sushobha Barve, he made three visits and brought out reports on each visit. … Since [Sinha] is a senior BJP member, the impression was that he might have a mandate from the government. That is why he had access to even hard-line separatist leaders such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who wanted to stress that they were not averse to dialogue if New Delhi was serious. …
But nothing came out of the visit as the Modi government did not recognise the group’s effort; perhaps it did not want any dilution of its hard power policy vis-a-vis Kashmir.
Sinha was forced to state publicly that Modi denied him audience. “I am hurt. I am absolutely hurt… ever since I have been in public life, no Prime Minister of India, starting with Rajiv Gandhi, has ever said no to a meeting I have sought; no Prime Minister has said to Yashwant Sinha I don’t have time for you,” he told The Wire, a news portal.
Read the full piece here.
