The Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency (SIA) has filed a chargesheet against banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik in the 1990 abduction and murder of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat. The agency submitted the 737-page chargesheet before a designated NIA court in Jammu on Monday, nearly 36 years after the crime. Officials described the development as a “historic milestone” in the pursuit of justice for victims of terrorism. The SIA reopened the case in 2024 after reviewing the old investigation.

Sarla Bhat, a 27-year-old Kashmiri Pandit nurse, worked at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Soura. On April 14, 1990, alleged JKLF-linked militants abducted her on suspicion of being a police informer. Four days later, authorities found her bullet-riddled body in downtown Srinagar, several kilometres away from the place where she was abducted.

The SIA said its fresh investigation identified the role of several people in the crime. According to the agency, the investigation revealed "the involvement of Mohammad Yaseen Malik, then Chief Commander of 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."

Three of the accused named in the chargesheet are no longer alive. Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Ghulam Mohammad Taploo and Mohammad Yousuf Sofi have died. Yasin Malik is currently serving a life sentence in Delhi's Tihar Jail after his conviction in a terror funding case in 2022.

The agency also identified Khursheed Ahmad Chalkoo as the alleged shooter in the case. Officials believe that he escaped to Pakistan and remains there.

Police had registered an FIR in 1990 under sections related to murder, criminal conspiracy and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. However, the investigation failed to make significant progress during that period as militancy had spread across the region.

An SIA official said police officers hesitated to actively investigate terror-related cases due to the precarious security situation. Several investigators also became targets of militant attacks during that period, hampering the progress of many investigations.

The migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley further affected the investigation. Many terror-related cases gradually moved into what officials described as “cold storage.” As time passed, investigators found several serious shortcomings in the original probe.

The SIA found that investigators had not sent weapons recovered from suspected terrorists for ballistic examination. Officials also discovered that they never analysed the handwriting on the note recovered with Sarla Bhat's body. In addition, several important interrogation records had reportedly gone missing over the years.

The passage of more than three decades created fresh challenges for the investigators. Many witnesses had either died, disappeared or had become extremely difficult to locate. Despite these difficulties, the SIA reopened the case in 2024 and carried out a fresh investigation. The agency has now placed its findings before the designated NIA court in Jammu, marking a major step in one of the oldest pending terror-related murder cases in Jammu and Kashmir.