SIA names Yasin Malik, 4 others in Sarla Bhat murder case

Murder contributed to fleeing of KPs

Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, June 29: After last year's reopening of the murder case of Kashmiri pandit nurse Sarla Bhat, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) today filed a chargesheet in the case naming jailed JKLF chief Mohammad Yasin Malik among five accused.

The 737-page chargesheet was submitted before the court of the Additional Sessions Judge, TADA/POTA and Special Judge under the NIA Act in Srinagar.

The agency has charged five operatives of the banned Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) for murder, including its jailed chief, Yasin Malik. Of the other four accused, three - Abdul Hameed Sheikh, Ghulam Mohammad Taploo and Mohammad Yousuf Sofi - have already been killed, while the fourth one - Khursheed Ahmad Chalkoo is absconding and believed to be in Pakistan.

The SIA said the chargesheet is based on witness statements, documentary records, forensic and ballistic reports, medical evidence, electronic material and field investigation conducted after the case was revived.

The chargesheet invokes provisions of the Ranbir Penal Code, including those related to murder, abduction, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence, along with sections of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), 1987, and the Arms Act.

The SIA said the investigation reconstructed the sequence of events with the help of protected witnesses, eyewitness accounts, forensic examination, medical records and documentary evidence.

The agency also said allegations that Bhat was working as an informer were not substantiated during the investigation and were allegedly used as a pretext for her killing.

According to the SIA, the murder formed part of a larger campaign aimed at creating fear during the early phase of militancy in Kashmir and contributed to the displacement of members of the Kashmiri Pandit community.

The agency said filing the chargesheet marked a significant step in pursuing justice in one of the Valley's long-pending terror cases and reaffirmed its commitment to investigating unresolved terror-related offences irrespective of the passage of time.

While most of the Kashmiri Pandits left the valley in early 1990, Bhat had decided to stay back. Bhat was a 27-year-old nurse from the Qazibagh area of Anantnag. She was working at the Sheri Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar and was abducted and killed allegedly by the JKLF.

The SIA said that on April 18, 1990, Bhat was at her hostel when terrorists barged in and abducted her at gunpoint. Her body, marked by multiple bullet wounds, was recovered the next day from Mallabagh, a locality close to the medical institute. A handwritten note recovered from her body accused her of "being a police informer".

The case was transferred to the SIA by the Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police on March 18, 2024, following which the agency reopened the investigation.

Police registered a case (under FIR No 56/1990) at the Nageen Police Station of Srinagar after the killing of Bhat in 1990. Although several Kashmiri Pandit organisations claimed that Bhat was "tortured and raped" before being killed, the police report only mentioned the murder.

Since then, there was limited progress in the investigation, while most FIRs filed by the police in the early 1990s were eventually closed as untraced.

In 2017, Roots in Kashmir, a Pandit organisation, filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the reopening of cases and investigations into the killings of Kashmiri Pandits by an investigating agency outside Kashmir.

A division bench of the apex court, rejected the petition, saying that 27 years had passed since the Pandit exodus from the Valley, and evidence "is unlikely to be available".

In December 2022, the Supreme Court also dismissed a curative petition filed by the Roots in Kashmir seeking a probe into the "genocide" of Kashmiri Pandits.

Last August, the SIA reopened the probe into Bhat's murder, making this the second case to be reopened by the agency. It then raided several places in Srinagar, including the residence of jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik and former commander Javid Ahmad Mir, besides six other suspected JKLF operatives.