SRINAGAR: Thousands of mourners thronged Friday the funeral of a veteran journalist shot dead by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike outside his office in the main city of Indian-occupied Kashmir.
Shujaat Bukhari, a leading journalist and editor of the English-language daily Rising Kashmir, was leaving his office in Srinagar on Thursday evening when three assailants roared up and fired several shots from close range.
Bukhari, 50, was rushed to hospital but was later declared dead. Two of his personal security guards also died.
On Friday, funeral prayers were held at the Jamia Masjid grand mosque in Srinagar before the burial in his native village in northern Kashmir.
Bukhari, who was given police protection following three attacks on him in the past decade, had been a strong advocate of peace in Kashmir.
Bukhari took part in informal peace talks on Kashmir with Pakistani representatives in Dubai last year.
His final tweet, sent just a few hours before his murder, was a link to his website´s reporting of the UN human rights chief calling for a major investigation into human rights abuses in occupied Kashmir.
The identity of the attackers and the motive for the killing was not yet known but Srinagar police released CCTV footage of the three suspects on the motorbike.
The government of Jammu and Kashmir has ordered a high-level investigation into the attack that came just ahead of the biggest Muslim festival of Eid.
Rising Kashmir on Friday carried a full-blown portrait of Bukhari on its front page against a black background.
"We won´t be cowed down by the cowards who snatched you from us. We will uphold your principle of telling the truth howsoever unpleasant it may be," the paper wrote in an obituary.
The murder has been condemned by both Indian and Pakistani leaders who hailed Bukhari as a fearless and courageous journalist.
In Muzaffarabad, some 250 protesters gathered outside the Central Press Club and demanded an independent investigation into Bukhari´s death.
Uzair Ahmed Ghazali, chairman of Pasbaan-e-Huriat, a representative group of refugees from Indian-occupied Kashmir, said Bukhari was killed because of his contributions to the UN report on Kashmir.
At least a dozen journalists have been killed in the nearly 30 years of the conflict in the restive region.
Most of the murders remain unsolved.