Srinagar: Police on Thursday released photographs of four accused who according to police are involved in the killing of veteran journalist Shujaat Bukhari.
IG Kashmir SP Pani alongwith DIG Central Kashmir and SSP Srinagar addressed a press conference and released the photographs of the four accused.
They said that campaign was started against Shujaat on social media before he was killed on June 14.
“We have tangible evidence to establish that the whole conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan by Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT),” they said.
They said a Pakistan-based blogger, a resident of Kashmir namely Sajad Gul and now settled there, has been identified who according to police hatched the conspiracy to kill Shujaat. Gul was arrested in 2003 by Delhi Police. He was also arrested in Srinagar in 2016 before he left for Pakistan in 2017 and settled there.
Police named the other three accused as Azad Ahmad, resident of Arwani Bijbehara, Muzaffar Ahmad, aaresident of Sopat Qazigund and Naveed, a resident of Pakistan. According to police these were the three who executed the murder of Shujaat and were seen riding a motorbike on CCTV.
Bukhari, Editor-in-chief of daily Rising Kashmir, was killed on June 14 by three men outside his office at press enclave. Two of his PSOs were also killed in the attack.
Hours after the sensational killing, police had released CCTV grabs of the attackers, who were riding a motorcycle. While one of the attackers was wearing a helmet, the other had worn a mask.
While police have accused Lashker-e-Taiba for killing Bukhari, the militant outfit has denied it.
