Nearly 35 years after the abduction, rape and murder of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat, the Jammu & Kashmir State Investigation Agency (SIA) has filed a detailed 737‑page chargesheet naming Mohammad Yasin Malik — then chief commander of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) — as the principal conspirator behind the crime. The chargesheet was submitted before the TADA Court in Srinagar, marking a major development in one of the most brutal cases from the peak of the 1990 insurgency.
The SIA said the killing was part of a larger campaign of targeted violence aimed at terrorising the Kashmiri Pandit community and triggering its mass exodus from the Valley. Investigators reconstructed the case using protected witness statements, forensic and ballistic evidence, electronic records, and contemporaneous documents.
According to the chargesheet, Sarla Bhat — a nurse at SKIMS Soura — was abducted on 18 April 1990 after finishing her duty. She was allegedly taken to the Illahibagh–Lal Bazar area, assaulted, tortured, and later shot dead. Her body was recovered the next morning on the Mallabagh–Omer Colony Road.
Besides Malik, the SIA named Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo — believed to have fled to Pakistan‑occupied Jammu & Kashmir — along with Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi (Idrees) and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo, all now deceased, as part of the conspiracy.
Malik, currently lodged in Tihar Jail after his 2022 conviction in a terror‑funding case, attended the proceedings via video conferencing. The case, originally registered as FIR No. 56/1990, remained unresolved for decades due to witness intimidation and widespread violence.
Eyewitnesses consistently identified Sarla Bhat in the company of the accused shortly before her abduction, strengthening the prosecution’s reconstruction of events.