Nisar Dharma
Srinagar, Jun 23: Controversial politician and former BJP leader, Lal Singh Choudhary has warned the journalists working in Kashmir to ‘mend their ways’ or face the consequences, with an apparent reference to the assassination of senior journalist, Syed Shujaat Bukhari.
Referring to the Kathua rape-n-murder case, Singh told a press conference in Jammu on Friday that Kashmiri journalists had created a “wrong atmosphere there”.
“Kashmiri journalists, you need to draw a line on the journalism you do and how you have to live. Do you have to live like what happened to Basharat, so that such a situation emerges?” Singh said in an apparent reference to Rising Kashmir editor Shujaat Bukhari, who was assassinated by gunmen outside his office on June 14.
Shujaat Bukhari’s brother Basharat Bukhari was law and parliamentary affairs minister in the PDP-BJP government before BJP pulled the plug on the alliance and the state came under governor’s rule.
“So mend your ways and draw a line, so that this brotherhood remains intact and there is progress,” Singh said.
Singh’s statement was condemned by former chief minister and National Congress leader Omar Abdullah. “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,” Omar tweeted.
Besides participating in the rally in favour of the Kathua rape accused, Singh has also attracted bad press for his threats to the Gujjars of Kashmir, reminding them of the massacre of Muslims in Jammu after partition in 1947.
