JAMMU, Aug 22: There has been significant breakthrough in the terror-related cases reopened in the Kashmir Valley prompting the administration to reinitiate investigations in more such cases even as file related to killing of three members of minority community in Billawar tehsil of Kathua district, which was handed over to the State Investigation Agency (SIA), has gone missing.
After filing charge sheet in Sarla Bhat murder case and conducting multiple raids in the killings of Sarvanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul, who were shot dead by the terrorists in 1990, the SIA has shifted its focus towards the killings of 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.
Judge Neelkanth Ganju, who had ordered execution of terrorist Maqbool Bhat and his associate was killed by the terrorists at Hari Singh Street in Srinagar on November 4, 1989 while Tika Lal Taploo, who was then State vice president of the BJP, was gunned down at his house in Srinagar on September 13, 1989. On January 25, 1998, 23 Kashmiri Pandits were massacred by the terrorists at Wandhama in Ganderbal district of Kashmir for not migrating from the Valley. The victims include nine women and four children.
“There has been significant breakthrough in some of the cases which have been reopened after three to three and half decades as the SIA teams have succeeded in identifying terrorists, Over Ground Workers (OGWs) and others involved in the killings though some of them have died over a period of time,” the sources said but added that some others are alive and are likely to be arrested though they have gone into hiding after reopening of the cases.
At the same time, sources pointed out, a number of cases have been handed over to the district police under whose jurisdictions the killings took place.
Sources, however, disclosed that one of the significant cases in Jammu region which was handed over to the SIA, couldn’t be taken up as its file has gone missing.
The case pertained to the killing of three members of minority community at upper reaches of Malhar in Billawar tehsil of Kathua district in 2003. With case file missing, it hasn’t been taken over by the SIA so far. Efforts are, however, on to trace the file to hand it over to the investigation agency. The SIA can take up investigations only if the file is traced.
In other cases of several years back, the district police has resumed investigations but the probe is expected to take some time.
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 Sarwanand 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.
