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A Correspondent in Srinagar
In an incident that could have a far-reaching impact on the reportage out of the Kashmir valley, two unidentified militants shot at a journalist in his office in Srinagar on Wednesday afternoon.
Zafar Iqbal, a sub-editor with Kashmir Images, was seriously injured in the attack. He has been admitted to a hospital.
According to eye-witnesses, the gunmen came to the Kashmir Images office and asked for Zafar. "They sat with him for over half-an-hour discussing something," said a colleague of Zafar.
"I was sitting in another corner of the same room. Suddenly, one of them took out a pistol and shot Zafar in his head," he said.
Blood was splattered all over the floor when this correspondent visited the Kashmir Images office.
Zafar, in his early twenties, had recently written a story about the misery of a family which lost it's only bread winner after his leg had to be amputated due to an infection.
Reacting to the story published in Kashmir Images on May 10, the army had adopted the family.
Kashmir Images had published a report on this humane gesture of the army and this is being seen as the provocation for the attack on Zafar.
"The assailants were discussing the same story with Zafar before he was shot at. He was a gentleman...he had no enemies," said another colleague of Zafar.
Doctors attending to Zafar at the State Medical Hospital said he was out of danger, but would have to be observed for the next 24 hours.
"He has lost a lot of blood. One bullet has brushed past his cheek-bone. Another pierced his leg," a doctor said.
The attack on Zafar has brought back memories of Mushtaq Ali, a photojournalist, who was killed in a parcel bomb attack some years back in Srinagar.
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