Web Desk: The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) on Wednesday rejected India’s decision to name its jailed chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik, in the 1990 murder of nurse Sarla Bhat, calling the allegations politically motivated and denying that either Malik or the organisation had any role in the killing.
The response came after Indian investigators filed a charge sheet in the decades-old case, reviving an investigation into the abduction, alleged rape and killing of Bhat, who worked at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar.
India’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) has named Malik and several others in a 737-page charge sheet linked to the April 1990 killing, according to Indian media reports.
The charge sheet names Malik alongside Khursheed Ahmad Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Ghulam Mohammad Taploo and Mohammad Yousuf Sofi. Indian media said three of the accused have since died.
The SIA said the investigation relied on oral testimony as well as documentary, forensic, ballistic, medical and electronic evidence gathered and analysed over the years.
The case had remained dormant for years before being reopened following directions from former Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. It was transferred to the SIA in March 2024 for a fresh investigation after Kashmiri Pandit groups sought renewed probes into killings from the 1990s.
Earlier, in 2017, India’s Supreme Court declined to reopen several cases involving the killings of Kashmiri Pandits, saying the crimes had occurred nearly three decades earlier and that securing reliable evidence and witnesses would be difficult, according to Indian media.
In a statement, JKLF chief spokesman Muhammad Rafiq Dar, who also serves as Malik’s special representative, said the organisation categorically rejected the allegations.
Dar said the Indian government was attempting to secure a death sentence for Malik by implicating him in multiple criminal cases. He alleged that after pursuing cases related to terror funding, the killing of Indian Air Force personnel and the kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, authorities had now added Malik to the Sarla Bhat murder case.
He said neither Malik nor the JKLF had any connection with the killing.
Dar also criticised the inclusion of deceased JKLF leaders Sheikh Abdul Hameed, Mohammad Yousuf (Idrees) and G.M. Taploo in the charge sheet, describing the move as “shameful” and alleging it was intended to target the Kashmiri pro-independence leadership.
Malik, chairman of the JKLF, has been imprisoned in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2019 in connection with separate terrorism-related cases brought by Indian authorities.
The latest charge sheet marks another legal challenge for the separatist leader as Indian investigators continue to pursue cases linked to the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir during the 1990s.
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