Thirty-six years after Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat was abducted, tortured, and shot dead in Srinagar, the Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency has filed a chargesheet in the case, naming former JKLF chief commander Yasin Malik among five accused.

The 737-page chargesheet, submitted in court on Monday, alleges that Malik and his associates conspired to abduct and kill Bhat. Malik is currently serving a life sentence in Delhi's Tihar Jail in a separate terror funding case.

According to the chargesheet, the main shooter, Khurshid Ahmad Chalkoo, allegedly fired the fatal shots and remains absconding, suspected to be hiding in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Three other named accused — Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi alias Idris, and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo — have since died.

Sarla Bhat, 27, a resident of Anantnag, worked as a staff nurse at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Soura, Srinagar. On April 18, 1990, she was abducted from near the hospital premises while heading to duty. She was held captive at multiple locations over the following four days and subjected to brutal torture before being shot dead. Her body was recovered four days later in the Downtown area of Srinagar, bearing multiple bullet wounds and signs of torture. A note found near the body branded her an informer for security forces.

Militants later threw a grenade at her family's home, forcing them to flee the Kashmir Valley altogether.

The case had remained largely dormant for over three decades before being transferred to the SIA in March 2024. Investigators spent close to two years building the case — conducting raids at multiple locations, including eight sites searched in August 2025, scrutinising old records, recording witness statements, and gathering medical, forensic, ballistic, documentary and electronic evidence. That body of evidence forms the basis of the chargesheet now filed.

The accused face charges under murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence, along with provisions of the now-repealed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Arms Act.

Malik's trajectory has been closely tracked by investigating agencies over the decades. He joined the JKLF in the late 1980s and emerged as one of its most prominent faces during the peak of militancy in Kashmir between 1989 and 1990, with agencies alleging his involvement in planning several attacks during that period. In 1994, he announced he was giving up arms and repositioned himself as a separatist political leader, joining the Hurriyat Conference and remaining a visible figure in Kashmir's separatist politics for years afterward. The JKLF was banned by the central government in February 2019 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act over its alleged role in terrorism and separatist activity. In May 2022, a Delhi NIA court sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in the terror funding case, where he remains lodged.

The chargesheet marks a long-delayed step toward accountability in one of the many unresolved cases tied to the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the early 1990s.