Shujaat Bukhari, Editor-in-chief of ‘Rising Kashmir’ was shot dead outside his office on 14 June 2018, which also proved to be a tipping point for BJP-PDP split in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
His son, Tamheed Shujaat Bukhari studying in Class 10 of the Kashmir Valley School have written a heartfelt obituary for his father.
Tahmeed recalls the horrific day when he heard the horrible news of his father’s untimely death.
“The moment I heard it, my legs started trembling but I was still hoping against all hopes. A thousand thoughts flooded my mind. May be, he is still in the operation theatre? May be, he will come running toward me and hug me? However, his fate had befallen, his soul ascended. I still couldn’t understand why someone would do this to a righteous man like my father.”
He cried and wailed inside the ambulance while they were on the way to their ancestral village with his father’s body. He kept hoping against all odds that his father might get up from the lap of death and embrace him.
“Papa was a man of principles. I know that for sure. My dad was surrounded by thousands of haters but he never uttered a word of bitterness against any of them. He was a thinker but did not have an atom’s worth of conceit. He was an epitome of knowledge, benevolence, munificence and a thousand other noble qualities.” he wrote.
He recalls his father’s philanthropic work during the devastating floods of 2014, when he would hardly spend time at home, helping thousands hit by flood.
“He worked for peace his entire life and was martyred for it. He believed that one day Kashmir would become free from innocent killings. He was passionate about Kashmiri language and a linguist scholar. He had a tremendous love for his mother-tongue, and the much-awaited dream of his of seeing Kashmiri taught upto 10th standard in schools got realised in June 2017.” Tamheed added.
Tamheed says that Kashmir’s English journalism has produced many great reporters and editors, few heroes, but no martyrs.His father is now both – journalist and a martyr.
“His legacy is vast. I don’t know how I will be able to keep up with his expectations and magnanimity. Kashmir’s English journalism has produced many great reporters and editors, few heroes, but no martyrs. Now it has produced both. He always stood for unbiased journalism and never took sides of even his brother, who is in politics.” he writes
Tamheed ends his emotional obituary by wishing his father a place in paradise.
“He was not fit for this cruel world. God wants pious people like him there. May Allah grant him the highest place in Jannah. May he be bestowed with the choicest blessings of Jannah.”
(The letter was originally published in ‘Rising Kashmir’.)