PDP demands BJP leader's arrest for threatening Kashmiri journalists

The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party today urged Governor N N Vohra to immediately book and arrest former minister and BJP leader Choudhary Lal Singh for his derogatory remarks against Kashmiri journalists, terming him a serious threat to the state's communal harmony.

The state unit of the Congress too has condemned the former minister's remarks warning Kashmiri journalists to draw a line between reporting facts and supporting terrorists or face the fate of Rising Kashmir editor Shujaat Bukhari, who was shot dead by militants.

Keeping in view Singh's continuous rants against the people of Kashmir and efforts to stoke the communal passions in the state, it is highly unfortunate that elements like him are allowed to roam freely, PDP general secretary Mansoor Hussain said in a statement here.

"Kashmiri journalists have created an erroneous atmosphere and I would like to ask them to draw the line," Singh had told reporters in Jammu yesterday.

"You want to live like what happened to Basharat," he said in an apparent reference to Shujaat Bukhari.

Shujaat Bukhari's brother Basharat Bukhari is a PDP leader and was the law minister in the PDP-BJP government, of which Singh had been a part, before the BJP withdrew from the alliance last week.

"Take care of yourselves and draw a line so that the brotherhood is not broken and it is maintained so that progress and development (of the state) is ensured, Singh said.

In a tweet today, the BJP MLA said, "There is need to draw a line between reporting facts and supporting terrorists and their sympathisers. Misinterpretation has become a norm and reporting facts a rarity. Journalistic freedom is absolute but not at the cost of nation and nationalism."