Police identified Lashkar terrorist with other two in Shujaat Bukhari murder case, Pakistani blogger under scanner

Reports say that the information about the plans to kill Bukhari surfaced during an investigation in one of the recent encounters at Kulgam during which police officials got evidence to suggest that Jatt was in the middle of the motorcycle on which three terrorists were seen on the CCTV footage minutes before gunning down the journalist on June 14.

Police officials told media that the two persons who are from Jammu Kashmir were also identified by the police and are believed to be from one of the villages in south Kashmir.

They said a Pakistan-based blogger, a resident of Srinagar and now settled there, has also been identified. The blogger had started a hate campaign against Bukhari after he had attended Dubai conference last year.

Shujaat Bukhari was Editor-in-chief of local daily Rising Kashmir, was killed on June 14 by three men outside his office at press enclave here. Two of his PSOs were also killed in the attack. While police has accused Lashker-e-Taiba for killing Bukhari, the terror outfit has denied it saying that it is ready for international probe on this issue.

Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Mahmood Shah on Tuesday said the outfit was ready to cooperate in an international investigation into the killing of senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari. “If Indian forces are truly convinced that this heinous crime was committed by mujahideen then they should have no objection to an independent investigation into this murder by a neutral country such as China or Russia. We will fully cooperate in the investigation and would accept the findings,” Shah was by outfit spokesperson Dr Abdullah Ghazanwi as saying, in a statement.