Shujaat Bukhari was a truthful journalist: Naqvi

Srinagar: Veteran journalists of international repute Syed Naqvi and Sidharth Vardarajan, a former editor of leading national daily “The Hindu” on Friday paid rich tributes to late Syed Shujaat Bukhari on his first death anniversary which was presided over by them in presence of family friends, colleagues, journalists, academicians, literarians and students at Tagore Hall Srinagar.
Tributing late Shujaat Bukhari, the veteran journalist Syed Naqvi called him a truthful journalist and said that Bukhari had the qualities and the courage to side with the truthfuls.
Echoing the tributing remarks of Syed Naqvi, the former editor “The Hindu” Sidharth Vardarajan regretted that while police and law enforcement authorities have filed charge sheet in the killing of Gauri Lankesh, a prominent news paper editor in Banglore, the Jammu and Kashmir government presently directly under the central rule is still clueless and the inability of the authorities to even identify the assassinators of late Shujaat Bukhari is highly regrettable. He called upon all the journalists within and outside Jammu and Kashmir state to unitedly fight for a fast track investigation for immediate identification of Shujaat Bukhari’s real assassinators. He said killing of two men by police can’t be satisfying for those seeking probe into the killing of Shujaat Bukhari as even a charge sheet has not been filed by the authorities in this case.
While narrating his experiences with Shujaat Bukhari in The Hindu, Vardarajan said that late Shujaat Bukhari was a highly skilled professional journalist and an editor who had the qualities of playing bigger role in restoration of peace in Jammu and Kashmir state.
Saying that Shujaat was a great human rights defender, Vardarajan praised the efforts of the colleagues of Shujaat at “Rising Kashmir” and “Kashmir Media Group” in carrying on the mission of late Bukhari.