Shujaat Bukhari's killing: space for those seeking a middle ground in Kashmir is disappearing
On June 14, 2018 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published its first report on the state of human rights in Kashmir.
As people on social media were anticipating India’s rejection of the report, news of a shooting from Srinagar buried the UN exposé in the depths of our Facebook newsfeeds, as if someone erased it like it was fake news.
Three unidentified gunmen shot and killed Shujaat Bukhari, a senior journalist and editor-in-chief of a leading English newspaper, Rising Kashmir, and two of his personal security officers outside his office in the press enclave in Srinagar. Bukhari received multiple bullet wounds in his head and abdomen.
Read next: Dispatch from Srinagar: Our nights are becoming longer and darker
Such targeted assassinations of influential figures by unidentified gunmen are not a new development in Kashmir.
The ‘unidentified gunman’ is a mysterious character. He does not have a name nor is he affiliated with any organisation, state or non-state.
His association with state or any non-state actor is a matter of conjecture. Can we therefore think of him as a member of some Hollywood-style sleeper-cell?
He emerges out of nowhere in a busy street, takes out his weapon, kills his targets(s) and disappears.
He is never caught. The probes never end.
Assuming that such sleeper-cells exist, the question is who runs these cells? Who has the capacity to ensure that these cells function and survive for decades?
The general inference drawn by the police, other government agencies and some journalists is that these men are militants.
They are accused of ‘not giving peace a chance’ and are considered to be working at the behest of Pakistan and its ISI.
However, people in Kashmir do not rule out the possibility of the involvement of Indian intelligence agencies in such killings.
The shop-front discussants have their own way of theorising the conflict they are born and brought up in. “Why would militants kill anyone from the population they claim to be fighting for?” is the question they ask.
Arbitrary killing of civilians is thought to be a counter-productive measure that no militant movement that depends on the very same population for resources, movement, and membership would like to resort to. The fish would not want to contaminate the water it swims in.
High-profile killings and political assassinations as a tactic of insurgency doesn’t seem to have found many takers among the present militant leadership in Kashmir.
It’s mostly only policemen and grassroots workers of pro-India political parties that have been targeted by militants.
Militant groups generally take credit for the killings they order and execute. However, in case of Bukhari’s assassination, they have demanded an international probe.