'Draw a line or be ready for Shujaat-like incident: BJP leader warns Kashmir journalists

Former Jammu and Kashmir minister and BJL leader Chaudhary Lal Singh on Friday accused the journalists of creating a “wrong narrative” in the Kathua rape-and-murder case and warned them of “Shujaat-like incident”.

Lal Singh, who attended the rally in support of Kathua rape accused, suggested journalists in the Valley to “draw a line” of journalism with an apparent reference to Shujaat Bukhari’s assassination.

Referring to Kathua rape and murder case incident, the BJP leader said, “The way Kashmiri journalists created a wrong atmosphere there, I would now want to tell them to draw a line on the journalism you do. Do you have to live like what happened to Basharat, so that such a situation emerges?”

BJP leader Lal Singh Chaudhary says in Jammu, "journalists of Kashmir created a wrong environment there. You should draw a line in journalism, so that brotherhood is maintained & there is progress" (22.06.18) pic.twitter.com/8TXaU3rPaZ

— ANI (@ANI) June 23, 2018

Earlier on June 14, senior journalist and Rising Kashmir Editor-in-Chief Shujaat Bukhari was assassinated by bike-borne assailants outside his office.

Bukhari, a senior journalist who had previously worked with the Hindu, was shot at close range in an audacious terror attack in which his two security officers were also killed.

Shujaat Bukhari’s brother Basharat Bukhari was law and parliamentary affairs minister in the Mehbooba Mufti government before the BJP pulled out its alliance with the PDP.

Reacting to the BJP leader’s threat to scribes in the Valley, former chief minister and National Conference Chief condemned his remarks and expressed his fear that Shujaat’s death will be used as a tool by goons to threaten other journalists.

“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.