JAMMU, Oct 22: Even as it grappled with missing files and dead or untraced accused, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) is likely to take up a few more cases of terror-related killings of the nineties in Jammu and Kashmir for investigations especially which were closed for want of evidence or other issues in the First Information Reports (FIRs) registered then.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the high-level committee set up by the UT administration for examining old cases of terrorism for reopening on the basis of merit, has studied a number of FIRs, mostly pertaining to the Kashmir Valley. Before approving the cases for reopening, the committee examines a series of issues including whether the investigations conducted earlier were not up to the mark and the Investigating Officers hadn’t applied adequate legal provisions to get the accused convicted.
Further, the committee takes a decision on reopening of the cases after taking into consideration as to whether the cases can be taken to logical conclusion for judicial scrutiny to get the accused punished which was not done earlier when the incident actually took place.
“Some more legacy cases are likely to be taken up for reopening,” the sources said, adding a final decision is expected shortly.
The UT administration is confident that the cases which have been investigated or which are under investigation will help deliver justice to the terror victims and their families. As reopening of the cases has been welcomed not only by the families of the victims but various other sections of the society, the administration and the high-level committee has taken a call on fresh probe into more legacy cases, they said.
Some of the fresh cases, they added, are likely to be handed over to the SIA and others to concerned district police. Presently also, some of the cases are under reinvestigations of the SIA and others by the concerned district police.
At the same time, the sources pointed out, the investigating agencies are also finding the work tough in some cases because of missing files or part of the files, copies of FIRs and investigations done earlier and similar record as the cases are nearly three decades or even more old.
The SIA has already filed charge sheet in Sarla Bhat murder case and is investigating the killings of Sarvanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul, who were shot dead by the terrorists in 1990, Judge Neelkanth Ganju, who had ordered execution of terrorist Maqbool Bhat, BJP senior leader Tika Lal Taploo and Wandhama, Ganderbal massacre in which 23 Kashmiri Pandits including nine women and four children were massacred.
The SIA had filed a comprehensive 737-page charge sheet before a Special Court in Srinagar in connection with the 1990 abduction and killing of SKIMS staff nurse Sarla Bhat. Bhat was abducted near SKIMS on April 18, 1990, subjected to torture and later shot dead in the Omer Colony area of Malbagh, Srinagar.
The charge sheet named former JKLF chief Mohammad Yasin Malik along with Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idrees and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo as accused in the case.
The SIA had on August 13 this year conducted raids at nine places in connection with the killings of Kashmiri Pandit writer Sarvanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul, in Anantnag 36 years ago. The raids were conducted at the residence of dreaded slain terrorist Sher Khan of Gambhir Mugalan in Rajouri district and his relatives in Rajouri, Jammu and Baramulla.
Sher Khan too had died a couple of years after the killing of Premi and his son, in Doda district of the Jammu region.
