On 10 April 1996, the body of Kashmiri newspaper editor Ghulam Rasool Sheikh was found in the state's Jhelum river. Sheikh had been missing since late March, when family members said that he was kidnapped by an Indian-backed militia. Local police, on the other hand, contend that he was abducted and slain by separatist guerrillas.
The editor of two Kashmiri newspapers, the Urdu- language daily "Rehnuma-e-Kashmir" and the English-language weekly "Saffron Times", Sheikh had recently spoken out against an increase in killings and arson incidents in the vicinity of his hometown, Pampur. Sheikh was also the head of an Islamic trust that is responsible for shrine and mosque management in the area. An autopsy was performed on the body; however, local reporters said that the details had not yet been released.
Sheikh's slaying closely paralleled the recent murder of Kashmiri lawyer and human rights activist Jalil Andrabi, whose body was discovered floating in the Jhelum river on 27 March. Andrabi's wife reported that her husband had not been seen since his arrest by Indian army officers on 8 March.
