‘Past govts failed to deliver justice in Sarla Bhat case’: Family member reacts to filing of chargesheet

Jammu, June 29 (IANS) More than 35 years after the abduction and brutal killing of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat, her family has blamed successive governments for failing to bring those responsible to justice, saying decades of inaction prolonged their suffering and denied closure to the victims’ kin.

Reacting to the filing of a 737-page chargesheet by the Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency (SIA), Sarla Bhat’s cousin, P.K. Bhat, recalled the horrors surrounding her killing and alleged that the governments of the time failed to act decisively against those responsible.

Recalling the incident, Bhat said Sarla was kidnapped, raped and murdered at the height of militancy in the Valley.

Even her cremation, he claimed, was marred by humiliation.

“When the time came for her cremation, when we went to collect her ashes, they did not allow us to pick them up. They desecrated them with their shoes, pushing them around back and forth. Then, by force, we managed to collect a handful of the ashes,” he recounted.

Turning to the broader situation in Jammu and Kashmir, Bhat contrasted the violence of the past with the relative calm after 2019.

“Until 2019, there used to be stone-pelting and gunfire; every day two or three people would die. Have you seen what has happened since then? Since then, neither is there stone-pelting nor are people dying, although rallies are still taking place. This is the difference between the government then and the government now,” he said.

Lamenting the delay in bringing the accused to justice, Bhat said successive governments had failed the victims.

“Justice denied, justice denied. If justice had to be given to them, then the governments at that time were such that they could not deliver justice,” he said.

On the naming of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik in the chargesheet, Bhat expressed strong anger.

“He should be punished. At the very least, gouge out his eyes, cut off his legs, and leave him out in the open. He should not even be kept in jail — there he is getting proper treatment. His eyes should be taken out, his legs should be cut off, and he should be left out in the open like a dog. He deserves such a punishment,” he said.

For the Bhat family, Sarla’s story is not merely a personal tragedy but a symbol of the suffering endured by the Kashmiri Pandit community — an open wound that remains unhealed even after 35 years.

More than 35 years after the abduction and brutal killing of Sarla Bhat, the Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency has filed a 737-page chargesheet before the Special Court in Srinagar.

Sarla, a staff nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), was kidnapped and murdered by JKLF terrorists in April 1990.

The case, which was transferred to the SIA in March 2024, was reconstructed through forensic, ballistic, medical and electronic evidence, along with protected witness testimonies.

The chargesheet names Yasin Malik and others, establishing the crime as part of a larger terrorist conspiracy aimed at terrorising Kashmiri Pandits.

The filing underscores that terrorism has no limitation period and that justice, though delayed, continues to pursue those responsible for such crimes.

–IANS

sktr/pgh