Jammu and Kashmir’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) in has filed a 737-page charge sheet in a three-decade-old case against jailed Kashmir leader Yasin Malik, alleging he was the “mastermind” of the 1990 abduction and killing of a Kashmiri Pandit nurse, officials said.
The case relates to the killing of Sarla Bhat, a nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar, who was abducted in April 1990 from the city’s Soura area and later found dead with gunshot wounds.
The charge sheet, submitted to a special court in Srinagar, names Malik as the central conspirator in the case, which investigators say was linked to members of the now-banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
Officials said the case was reopened in March 2024 on the orders of the Jammu and Kashmir police chief and subsequently handed over to the SIA for investigation.
Along with Malik, the agency has also named four former JKLF members — Khurshid Ahmed Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Ghulam Mohammad Tappu and Mohammad Yousuf Sofi — in the case. Three of them are deceased, while Chalkoo, identified as the alleged shooter, is absconding and believed to be in Pakistan.
The SIA said the killing formed part of a wider conspiracy aimed at creating fear and contributing to the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley.
“It was not an isolated incident but part of a larger conspiracy,” an agency spokesperson was quoted by media as saying. The official added that the case was built on forensic evidence, eyewitness accounts and material collected from the scene.
Malik is currently lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, where he is serving a life sentence in a separate terror-funding case. He appeared before the court via video link for proceedings in the new case.
His lawyer, Aadil Pandit, rejected the allegations, saying the charge sheet contained no concrete evidence and was aimed at publicity.
Observers say the filing is part of a broader effort by authorities to reopen and pursue long-dormant “legacy” cases in which Kashmiri leaders and militants are accused. The cases are being pursued amidst a campaign by Kashmiri pandits seeking judicial action in the incidents of violence targeting members of the community in early 90s when insurgency against state broke out in the region.
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