Dear departed: Veteran journalist Ved Bhasin remembered

Former Kashmir Times editor died on Nov 5 at the age of 86.

MUZAFFARABAD: Veteran journalist Ved Bhasin was an icon of English journalism, a tolerant society, secularism and communal harmony in Indian Kashmir.

This was stated by speakers at a condolence reference held here on Tuesday by the Capital Journalists Forum (CJF) to pay homage to the Hindu-Kashmiri journalist and former Kashmir Times chief editor, who died on November 5 in Jammu at the age of 86.

Former Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Supreme Court Chief Justice Manzoor Hussain Gilani said fearlessness is the point of journalism, which was inherent in Bhasin.

“I met Ved Bhasin in Jammu in 2013, and found him to be a completely militant journalist. It reminded me of Maulana Zaffar Ali Khan’s journalism against the British rule,” Gilani said.

He said the condolence reference for a Hindu journalist in Muzaffarabad illustrated that the people of AJK are not prejudiced.

AJK Rehabilitation Minister Abdul Majid Khan said the late journalist’s principled stand on Kashmir was proof that the ongoing rights struggle was one shared by Hindu intellectuals alike.

Former Kashmir Times correspondent Roshan Mughal said readers of the paper are optimistic that a daughter of Bhasin will follow in her father’s footsteps.

Media Adviser to AJK Prime Minister Azadar Shah said Bhasin fought against Hindu fundamentalism, and will be an inspiration for young journalists across the Line of Control.

Journalist and political commentator Arif Bahar said both Bhasin and Balraj Puri will be remembered as true sons of the soil in Jammu and Kashmir.

He added that during the peak of the Kashmir movement in the early 1990s, only the Kashmir Times was a source of information for journalists.

CJF President and senior journalist Tariq Naqash said current senior journalists in Srinagar and Jammu were students of Bhasin.

His death was a dent to secularism and a tolerant society in Indian Kashmir, Naqash added.

Ved Bhasin hailed from Bhimber, AJK and migrated to Jammu in 1947.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2015.