SRINAGAR: After reopening the cases of killing of two Kashmiri Pandits by militants in 1990, Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency (SIA) has reopened investigation into the 1998 Wandhama massacre in which 23 Kashmiri Pandits were killed by militants in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.
According to sources, the case has been reopened for investigation by SIA to gather fresh evidence into the killings and identify and prosecute those responsible for the massacre.
On the intervening night of January 25-26 in 1998, militant wearing army clothes entered the homes of Kashmiri Pandit families in Wandhama village of Ganderbal district and started open firing.
23 people including nine women and four children were killed in the massacre.
Ganderbal Police Station had registered an FIR into the massacre but the case has remained unresolved.
“Now the SIA has reopened the investigation of the case. All efforts will be made by the agency to uncover the conspiracy behind the massacre. The agency will be gathering credible evidence to identify those responsible for the massacre on the basis of evidence and statements from witnesses,” police sources said.
They said the fresh investigation will involve a review of the earlier probe, examination of available records and evidence, and efforts to trace fresh leads that could help establish the sequence of events and identify those involved in the massacre.
The Wandhama probe is part of the SIA’s broader move to revisit several cases involving the killings of Kashmiri Pandits during the early years of militancy.
The agency has already taken up investigations into the 1990 killings of Kashmiri Pandit writer and poet Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul.
On August 12, SIA conducted searches at nine locations in J&K as part of its investigation in killing of Kashmiri Pandit poet and writer Sarwanand Kaul Premi and his younger son Virender Kaul by militants in 1990.
Premi, 65, and his 27-year-old son Virender were killed by militants in May 1990 in their native village Soaf Shali in Kokernag in south Kashmir's Anantnag district.
In June this year, the SIA filed a 737-page chargesheet in a court in connection with the abduction and killing of a Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat on April 19, 1990.
The chargesheet has named jailed JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik and four other militants of JKLF for their involvement in killing the nurse.
Sarla, a staff nurse at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar, was abducted and killed by militants on April 18, 1990.
Of the five accused, three have died while Yaseen Malik is presently lodged in Tihar jail and has been awarded life imprisonment in a case of terror funding and terror activities by the NIA trial court in Delhi. Another accused Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo is believed to have exfiltrated to PoK.
The Kashmiri Pandits migrated enmasse from Kashmir after eruption of militancy in the Valley in 1990 and settled in Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country.
The SIA is also all set to reopen two high profile cases of killings of Tika Lal Taploo, then Vice President of the BJP in J&K and Justice (Retd) Neelkanth Ganjoo, who had presided over the trial in which death sentence was awarded to JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat
Taploo was shot dead by militants on September 13, 1989 while Justice (Retd) Ganjoo was killed by militants on Hari Singh Street in Srinagar on November 4, 1989.