For 36 years, PN Bhat, 62, carried memories of not only losing his cousin Sarla Bhat but allegedly being prevented from collecting her ashes. With the state investigation agency reopening the 1990 murder case, the family now hopes justice will finally be delivered.
“Justice remained elusive to us for 36 long years but finally the wheels of justice have started rolling again,” says Bhat.
Sarla Bhat, a 27-year-old staff nurse working at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Soura, was abducted from her hostel on April 15, 1990 by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik and four others. She was subjected to physical torture and sexual assault in captivity before being shot dead. Her body was dumped in Malbagh, Srinagar, along with a JKLF note falsely branding her a “mukhbir (informer).”
PN Bhat, a retired college professor, recalls how hostile elements didn’t allow him to collect Sarla’s ashes from the cremation ground.
“She was my maternal cousin. I still remember how around 200 hostile elements at the cremation ground on the next day didn’t allow us to collect her ashes. They asked as that why we have come to the cremation ground and threatened us of dire consequences. They even disrespected and desecrated Sarla’s ashes with their feet. I hurriedly picked up handful of her ashes and hid it in my pheran (loosely fitted robe),” recalled Bhat.
“We collected all our belongings and fled to Jammu. However, on the next day at 5 am a bomb exploded in Sarla’s house in Anantnag,” he added.
The retired lecturer regretted that despite being known to everyone that who were behind Sarla’s rape and murder, police dragged its feet and the investigations were never taken to their logical conclusion. “I hope that justice is served with a logical closure of the case, so that my sister’s soul rests in peace,” he added.
Bhat informed that Sarla’s parents, in their late 80s, one sister and two brothers, younger to Sarla, live in Jammu.
“They toiled all their lives for justice which was never provided to them. However, time has changed now…the perpetrators of violence would pay for their acts,” he said.
It may be stated here that the State Investigation Agency (SIA) chargesheet has named former JKLF founder Malik, Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo, Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi, alias Idrees, and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo as accused in the case.
Three of the accused—Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idrees and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo—have since died, while Mohammad Yasin Malik is currently in judicial custody in a terror funding case.
A case was registered after Sarla Bhat’s bullet ridden body was recovered ,a day after her abduction, from Lal Bazar, in 1990.
