On Thursday Kashmir police officer Swayam Prakash Pani said that the top Pakistani terrorist Naveed Jutt who made a dramatic escape from a Srinagar hospital in February this year had killed journalist Shujaat Bukhari on the eve of Eid earlier this month. Jutt, who was acting on orders from the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership in Pakistan, was one of the three terrorists on a bike who pulled the trigger.
On June 14 Shujaat Bukhari, the editor of Rising Kashmir was shot dead when he left his office and got into his car to go to an Iftaar party. The 3 killers who came on a bike, opened fire at the 52-year-old journalist and his two security guards. All of them died; the journalist was hit with 14 bullets.
This is the first major terror attack in which Jutt has been named after his escape, which was seen as an indictment of the security protocol at the Srinagar central jail and led to the unceremonious ouster of the state’s top prisons official SK Mishra.
Within 3 weeks a video of the terrorist had emerged on social media in which Jutt was seen in fatigues, a rifle in hand, walking up to a group of 5 armed terrorists including a Hizbul Mujahideen commander in a forested area of South Kashmir.