36 years after Kashmiri Hindu Nurse Sarla Bhat was gang-raped, tortured, carved with JKLF and murdered, J&K Police files chargesheet against 5 accused including mastermind Yasin Malik
In 1990, 27 year old Sarla Bhat was working as a staff nurse at Srinagar’s SKIMS hospital to support her family, even as fear forced her community to flee the Kashmir Valley, due to threats and violence of the insurgency in the region.
On April 15, 1990, Sarla was abducted from her hostel. For four agonizing days, JKLF terrorists subjected her to brutal torture and gang-rape. Her body was dumped on the side of a road in Mallabagh in downtown Srinagar on April 19. Her body was bullet-ridden, covered with blood and the killers had carved the acronym "JKLF" directly into her flesh from a knife.
The horror continued for her family. When Sarla’s bullet-ridden body returned to Anantnag, the neighborhood was already a ghost town emptied by the exodus. Marooned and helpless, the grieving family could not find enough people to carry her to a funeral pyre. When her family ultimately cremated her by some means, a mob of over 200 people descended upon the crematorium and stomped over her ashes. A day later, a grenade was hurled at their home. Her death and the events that followed spread panic in the area. Several Hindu families in the region, including all remaining ones in the Qazi Bagh neighbourhood, fled the Kashmir Valley as a result
Though a police complaint was filed in 1990, the file was buried. It took until 2025 for the Jammu & Kashmir State Investigation Agency to reopen the case. Yesterday, a chargesheet was filed in this case naming 5 terrorists:
- Yasin Malik (principal conspirator, already in Police custody)
- Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo (gunman, absconding, probably fled to Pakistan)
- Abdul Hamid Sheikh (already deceased of natural causes)
- Mohammad Yousuf Sofi (already deceased of natural causes)
- Ghulam Mohammad Taploo (already deceased of natural causes)
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