Yasin Malik faces trial for 1990 Sarla Bhat murder

The State Investigation Agency (SIA) charged banned JKLF chief Yasin Malik as the key accused in the kidnapping and brutal killing of young Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat by terrorists in April 1990.

The SIA submitted the chargesheet before the designated NIA court here, 36 years after Bhat was found dead in downtown Srinagar, a day after she went missing.

Besides Malik his four accomplices — Khursheed Ahmad Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Ghulam Mohammad Taploo and Mohammad Yousuf Sofi have also been named as accused in the case. Chalkoo is believed to be living in Pakistan after exfiltrating from Kashmir.

The accused have been charged under various sections of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), 1987, and Indian Arms Act, 1959. In a statement, the SIA said time can never become a shield for terrorism and those responsible for atrocities will continue to remain answerable before the law.

The case was handed over to the SIA in March 2024 and the investigation agency carried out raids at several places over the past two years to stitch up the chargesheet against the five accused persons.

A spokesperson of the SIA said the voluminous 737-page chargesheet, painstakingly compiled after an exhaustive investigation, brings together a formidable body of oral, documentary, forensic, ballistic, medical and electronic evidence accumulated over decades and analysed meticulously.

“More importantly, the chargesheet sends a powerful and unequivocal message that time can never become a shield for terrorism. No matter how many years have elapsed, those responsible for terrorist atrocities will continue to remain answerable before the law,” the spokesperson said in a six-page handout.

He said the case demonstrates that while terrorism may delay justice through fear, intimidation and violence, it can never permanently defeat the rule of law.