New Delhi: Yasin Malik, the jailed chief of the banned Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), has been named along with other JKLF terrorists as accused in the chargesheet filed by the J&K State Investigation Agency (SIA) in the 1990 Sarla Bhat murder case.
This comes 36 years after Bhat, a nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, was abducted, tortured and killed, her bullet-riddled body dumped in downtown Srinagar alongside a note branding her a ‘mukhbir’ (informer), on 18 April 1990.
The SIA has filed a 737-page chargesheet before the Court of Additional Sessions Judge ( TADA/POTA), Special Judge designated under the NIA Act, Srinagar. The case was transferred to SIA J&K on 18 March 2024 under the orders of director general of police (DGP).
Malik, a Kashmiri separatist, is currently lodged in Tihar jail, serving a life sentence in a terror-funding case.
The SIA in a statement said that the chargesheet was compiled after an exhaustive investigation that brings together a formidable body of oral, documentary, forensic, ballistic, medical and electronic evidence, accumulated over decades and meticulously analysed. “The investigation has conclusively established that the killing of Bhat was not an isolated act of violence but part of a larger terrorist conspiracy orchestrated under the command and control of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF),” it stated.
Bhat was abducted from the vicinity of SKIMS on 18 April 1990, subjected to brutal torture and physical assault, and thereafter killed using an automatic rifle at Omer Colony, Malbagh, Srinagar. For decades, the case remained unresolved owing to the extraordinary circumstances prevailing during the peak years of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir.
In March 2024, the case was subjected to a comprehensive and scientific investigation. Despite the lapse of more than three and a half decades, investigators reconstructed the sequence of events through protected witness testimonies, independent eyewitness accounts, forensic and ballistic analysis, medical evidence, documentary records, electronic evidence and extensive field investigations.
Larger terrorist conspiracy
According to the SIA, its investigation revealed the involvement of Malik, then chief commander of the JKLF, along with Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idrees and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo, in planning and executing the abduction and brutal killing. While Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idrees and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo are dead, Mohammad Yaseen Malik is currently in judicial custody in another case.
Legal proceedings, including proclamation proceedings, have been initiated against absconding terrorist Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo (the man who pulled the trigger), who is believed to have exfiltrated to Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir.
Their motive is suspected to have been to instill fear among local Kashmiris and trigger an exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, which the perpetrators achieved, said a source in the SIU.
The chargesheet establishes offences punishable under Sections 364, 341, 302 read with 34, 201 and 120-B RPC, Sections 3(2), 3(3), 4 and 6 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), and Sections 7 and 27 of the Indian Arms Act, 1959.
To reconstruct the three-and-a-half-decade-old crime, investigators tracked down multiple witnesses, now in their 80s, interviewed journalists who covered the violence in the early 1990s, and secured forensic corroboration through a fresh ballistic examination.
‘Bhat was no informer’
SIA’s investigation further established that the allegation of Bhat being an “informer” was a fabricated pretext employed by terrorists to justify a premeditated assassination.
“Evidence collected during investigation demonstrates that the murder formed part of JKLF’s systematic campaign of targeted terrorist violence intended to spread fear among innocent civilians, particularly members of the Kashmiri Pandit community, create conditions for their forced displacement from the Kashmir Valley and advance the secessionist agenda of the terrorist organisation,” said the SIA statement.
Bhat’s killing was a turning point in the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. Soon after the incident, many remaining Pandit families, who hadn’t yet fled, began leaving Kashmir.
“It took almost a year to trace the eyewitnesses, who are now very old and convince them to testify. The investigation began from very limited information that was available in the case because in the 1990s, cases were registered, but no probes were carried out. It was the peak of militancy and the situation was very volatile. There were several killings, but perpetrators were never brought to justice,” an SIA officer said.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also Read: Dead suspects, scarce evidence & a 35 year-wait—J&K cops to file chargesheet in Sarla Bhat murder