The Jammu and Kashmir Police, in a joint operation with the State Investigation Agency (SIA), conducted raids at eight locations as part of an ongoing investigation into the abduction and murder of Kashmiri Pandit Sarla Bhat in April 1990. Among the sites reportedly searched was the residence of jailed Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik.
Sarla Bhat, a resident of Anantnag, was employed as a nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar. In April 1990, she was abducted by terrorists of the JKLF from the institute’s Habba Khatoon Hostel.
Brutal murder after rape
Bhatt was subjected to gang rape over several days before being brutally killed. Her body, bearing bullet wounds, was later discovered abandoned on a street in downtown Srinagar.
A note labeling her a “police informant” was found on her body, an accusation tied to her defiance of militant orders for Kashmiri Pandits to leave the Valley or quit government jobs.
Incident fuelled exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, says BJP
Divulging the details of Bhat's killing, BJP’s IT wing chief Amit Malviya said the incident was a precursor to the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990, following atrocities against them.
“Sarla Bhatt, a young Kashmiri Pandit nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar, was brutally murdered in April 1990 during the peak of militancy in Kashmir. Armed militants abducted her from her workplace, took her to an unknown location, and subjected her to horrific torture. She was gang-raped, mutilated, and killed — her body cut into pieces and dumped to instill terror. Her murder was not just a heinous crime but part of the targeted campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kashmiri Pandits, aimed at driving the Hindu minority out of the Valley. Sarla Bhatt’s killing remains one of the most chilling reminders of the atrocities that triggered the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990,” Malviya posted on X.
