Srinagar: The State Investigation Agency (SIA) of Jammu and Kashmir is set to file a 737-page chargesheet against five alleged Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front ( JKLF) members, including the outfit’s then chief commander Yasin Malik for the murder of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat nearly 36 years ago.
The chargesheet identifies Malik and Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo as the principal conspirators behind the abduction and murder. The other accused are Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idrees and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo, all of whom have since died, sources told Deccan Herald.
While Malik is currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, legal proceedings have been initiated against Chalkoo, who investigators believe is based in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK).
The case was reopened by the SIA in August last year after finding that the original investigation had made little headway amid the peak of terrorism. The SIA was set up by the state administration in 2021 to investigate terrorism and other offences affecting national security
Since August, investigators re-examined physical evidence, tracked down surviving eyewitnesses, interviewed journalists who covered the incident and used fresh forensic analysis to reconstruct the crime.
“Forensic experts re-examined the cartridges recovered from the crime scene and concluded they had been fired from the same automatic weapon allegedly used in the attack,” an official familiar with the investigations said.
The findings, he said, were consistent with fresh statements from eyewitnesses, many of whom had never been examined in detail and are now in their 70s and 80s.
Bhat (29), a nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), was abducted from the nurses’ hostel at Soura on April 18, 1990. Her body was later recovered at Kadalbal in Srinagar’s old city with multiple bullet wounds and a note branding her a ‘mukhbir’ (informer).
The killing was intended to terrorise the minority community and deepen the climate of fear that led to the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in early 1990, investigators believe.
The murder took place during a wave of targeted killings that included BJP leader Tika Lal Taploo, retired judge Neelkanth Ganjoo and Doordarshan Srinagar director Lassa Kaul.
Terrorists killed 209 Kashmiri Pandits from 1990 to 2008 (including 109 in 1990), according to police records.
The case is among the oldest terror-related investigations to reach the chargesheet stage after being revived decades later.
