LA Times story about Malik Sajjad,ＧＫCartoonist

Malik Sajad, a talented 20-year-old who has been drawing a daily editorial cartoon for the Greater Kashmir newspaper since he was 15, is about to publish a graphic novel describing his encounter with an elderly man whose son was allegedly killed and subsequently falsely identified as a terrorist by the Indian army.

Such violence and abuse was the reality with which Sajad was raised.

"It's part of me, my art," said the reedy, bespectacled youth. "You see landscapes; you draw landscapes. I saw guns; I draw guns. This is part of my surroundings. It's a normal part of my life."

His novel also recounts a run-in he had two years ago with local security forces that had stopped him at a checkpoint -- a typical experience for young Kashmiri men -- as he made his way home from work one evening. The police refused to believe he was a cartoonist, despite his company ID card, until he whipped out a pen and drew a caricature of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his hand.

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