(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the supreme commander of Hizbul Mujahidden, Syed Salahuddin, RSF expressed its indignation at the death of Pradeep Bhatia, a photo reporter with the daily “Hindustan Times”. RSF asked Salahuddin, who leads the largest armed separatist movement in Kashmir, to “stop the blind bombings that cost the lives of civilians […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the supreme commander of Hizbul Mujahidden, Syed Salahuddin, RSF expressed its indignation at the death of Pradeep Bhatia, a photo reporter with the daily “Hindustan Times”. RSF asked Salahuddin, who leads the largest armed separatist movement in Kashmir, to “stop the blind bombings that cost the lives of civilians and journalists who cover the fighting in this Indian state”. According to Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, “all the parties in the conflict in Kashmir must respect the Geneva conventions,” which stipulate in Article 79 of the First Additional Protocol that journalists should be protected like civilians by belligerents. RSF reminded him that two journalists were killed in Kashmir in 1997.
According to information obtained by RSF, Bhatia died in a bomb blast in the centre of Srinagar (the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir State, in western India) on 10 August 2000. Nine Indian and Kashmiri journalists were injured in the bombing, for which the separatist movement Kizbul Mujahidden claimed responsibility from Pakistan. The media workers ran to the State Bank of India, where soldiers were waiting for their salaries, after learning that a group of Kashmiri militants had attacked the building. Just then a bomb planted under a car exploded near the bank. At least eleven people died in the bombing, including nine soldiers and two civilians, notably the photo reporter with the “Hindustan Times”. Bhatia had travelled from New Delhi to cover the conflict in Kashmir, which has caused more than 25,000 deaths in the last eleven years. He was an experienced photo reporter. His body will be repatriated to New Delhi where his wife lives.
In January 1997, three unidentified persons killed Altaf Ahmed Faktoo, a journalist with the Doordarshan television station, in Srinagar (see IFEX alert of 24 January 1997). In March of the same year, Sydan Shafi, also a journalist with Doordashan, was shot and killed in an ambush in Srinagar (see IFEX alerts of 19 and 17 March 1997).
