Yasin Malik named main accused as SIA files chargesheet in 1990 Sarla Bhat rape-murder case

Nearly 35 years after the abduction, rape and murder of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat shocked the Valley, the Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency (SIA) on Monday filed a 737-page chargesheet naming JKLF chief Mohammad Yasin Malik as the alleged mastermind behind the crime.

The chargesheet, filed before the TADA Court in Srinagar, alleges that the killing was part of a wider campaign of targeted violence carried out by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) against the Kashmiri Pandit community in 1990 to spread fear and trigger the community's mass exodus from the Valley.

According to the SIA, the decades-old case was reconstructed using protected witness statements, forensic and ballistic evidence, documentary records, electronic evidence and other contemporaneous material.

SIA details Sarla Bhat's abduction and murder

The agency said Sarla Bhat, a nurse in the Neonatology Department at SKIMS Soura, was abducted on April 18, 1990, after completing her duty at the hospital.

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Investigators allege she was taken to the Illahibagh-Lal Bazar area, where she was assaulted, tortured and later shot dead. Her body was recovered the next day from the Mallabagh-Omer Colony Road in Srinagar.

The chargesheet identifies Mohammad Yasin Malik, then Chief Commander of the JKLF, as the principal conspirator who allegedly directed the operation.

Besides Malik, the SIA has named Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo, who is alleged to have fled to Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and remains absconding, along with Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idrees and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo, all of whom are now deceased, as part of the alleged conspiracy.

Malik, who is serving concurrent life sentences in New Delhi's Tihar Jail following his 2022 conviction in a terror funding case, attended the proceedings before the Srinagar TADA Court through video conferencing.

Case reopened after nearly 35 years

The case was originally registered as FIR No. 56/1990 at Police Station Nigeen under provisions of the IPC and TADA but remained unresolved for decades amid the violence and witness intimidation during the peak of the insurgency.

The SIA said it reopened the investigation by recording statements of protected witnesses under Sections 161 and 164 of the CrPC, reconstructing the crime scene, carrying out fresh forensic examinations and tracing people linked to JKLF activities in the Soura-Lal Bazar area during 1990.

According to the agency, eyewitnesses consistently identified Sarla Bhat in the company of the accused shortly before her abduction and described how she was allegedly dragged away, assaulted and killed.

Evidence cited by investigators

The prosecution has relied on multiple strands of evidence, including protected witness testimonies, independent eyewitness accounts, medico-legal findings documenting firearm injuries and alleged torture, ballistic examination of cartridge cases recovered from the crime scene, and electronic evidence to support the charges against the accused.