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SRINAGAR: J&K Police’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) filed a 737-page chargesheet Monday for the 1990 abduction, torture and killing of 27-year-old Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat, naming the proscribed JKLF’s then chief commander Mohammad Yasin Malik and four associates as the main conspirators in a crime whose trail went cold until the probe was reopened six months before assembly elections in 2024.Three of Malik’s co-accused died before the case could go to trial, with the probe agency blaming the 36-year delay on what it termed “an atmosphere of fear and intimidation created by terrorist organisations in J&K”.The chargesheet, filed in the special additional sessions judge’s court in Srinagar that hears cases filed by NIA and those under TADA and the Prevention of Terrorism Act, states that Malik assigned Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi, alias Idrees, and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo to carry out the abduction and killing.Sarla, a native of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, was a staff nurse in the neonatology ward of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) when Malik’s outfit abducted her from the govt-run college’s Habba Khatoon Hostel on April 18, 1990. She was among the few Kashmiri Pandits who chose to remain in the Valley despite terrorists unleashing violence targeting the community.The chargesheet mentions how Sarla was taken to the Illahibagh-Lal Bazar area, where she was allegedly tortured repeatedly before being shot dead. Her mutilated, bullet-riddled body was found the next day at Omer Colony Malabagh in downtown Srinagar along with a note accusing her of being a “mukhbir” or informer for the security forces.The investigation established that the “informer” accusation was a “fabricated pretext to justify a premeditated assassination”, SIA said, describing the chargesheet as “a tribute to the memory of a victim who was denied justice for decades, a reaffirmation of the rule of law and a message of hope to countless victims of terrorism and their families”.While Malik is in judicial custody in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in another terror case, Chalkoo, who allegedly pulled the trigger, is absconding. He is suspected to have fled to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Proclamation proceedings have been initiated against him, SIA said.The chargesheet cites offences punishable under sections 364 (abduction), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 302 (murder) of IPC, read with 34, 201 and 120-B of the erstwhile Ranbir Penal Code, sections 3(2), 3(3), 4 and 6 of TADA, and 7 and 27 of the Indian Arms Act, 1959.The case was transferred to SIA J&K on March 18, 2024, under the DGP’s orders. SIA told special judge Manjeet Rai that before it took over, terrorist activity for three decades “severely impacted the ability of witnesses to come forward and disclose material facts”.The agency described the chargesheet in the case as “a formidable body of oral, documentary, forensic, ballistic, medical and electronic evidence accumulated over decades and meticulously analysed by SIA Kashmir”.
