| Murder and rape of Sarla Bhat | |
|---|---|
| Location | Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India |
| Coordinates | 34°08′15.46″N 74°48′00.64″E / 34.1376278°N 74.8001778°E |
| Date | 15 April 1990–19 April 1990 |
| Target | Sarla Bhat |
Attack type | Abduction, sexual assault (rape), torture and murder |
| Victim | Sarla Bhat |
| Perpetrators | Militants of JKLF |
| Motive | Targeted militant violence against Kashmiri Hindus |
In April 1990, Sarla Bhat, a Kashmiri Hindu woman was murdered after being tortured and reportedly raped by Muslim militants of the JKLF during the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. Originally from Anantnag, Bhat was 27 years old and serving as a staff nurse at SKIMS in Srinagar at the time of her death. She was abducted on 15 April from her hostel in Srinagar, allegedly raped, tortured, killed, and her body mutilated by her captors, who accused her of being a "mukhbir" (lit. 'informer'). Her dead body was found on 19 April and handed over the next day to her family in Anantnag, who were unable to provide an appropriate cremation due to threats by militants and a grenade attack on the family’s home. Her death caused panic in her mostly Hindu ancestral mohalla (lit. 'neighbourhood') in Anantnag—which had been nearly emptied due to threats received during the then-ongoing exodus of Kashmiri Hindus—compelling all the remaining Hindu inhabitants there to flee. A police complaint was filed in 1990 but did not result in a full investigation. In 2025, the special investigation agency of Jammu and Kashmir police reopened the investigation.
Background[edit | edit source]
Sarla Bhat was the eldest child of Shambhu Nath Bhat and was born sometime in 1963. Her father worked as a school teacher, and they lived in the Qazi Bagh mohalla of Anantnag, a neighbourhood whose residents were mostly Kashmiri Hindus, primarily Pandits.[1][2] She had graduated with a degree in English literature from a government college in Anantnag and later pursued a BSc in Nursing.[1] According to a cousin, Bhat had refused to get married and instead decided to work to support her family.[3] In 1990, she was working as a staff nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Soura, Srinagar. Many members of her family, including her uncle, had fled the Kashmir Valley during the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus that year due to threats and violence of the insurgency in the region.[1]
Abduction and murder[edit | edit source]
On 15 April 1990, Bhat was abducted from her hostel in Srinagar.[4] Several reports mention that Bhat was raped and tortured in captivity.[5][6][7] Her mutilated dead body was found on the morning of 19 April on the side of a road in Mallabagh, Soura of downtown Srinagar, with a hand-written note attached to it. In the note, militants of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) had taken responsibility for killing her, and accused her of informing the police about the presence of militants at the hospital.[1][lower-alpha 1] The acronym JKLF had been engraved upon her body.[7]
Aftermath[edit | edit source]
On the night of 20 April, the body was handed over to Bhat’s family in Anantnag. A neighbour who had been present at Bhat’s house and helped with her funeral noted in a memoir that the body:
… was bullet-ridden and covered with blood. There were torture marks all over the body. It became clear to us that she had been violated and sexually assaulted before being killed.
Only three Hindu families had remained in their formerly Hindu-majority neighbourhood.[2] According to the memoir, though Muslim neighbours had been gathering to offer condolences, they were soon warned by militants against doing so.[2] In the absence of Hindu neighbours and of help from Muslim ones, the family experienced difficulties in arranging for appropriate cremation of the body. Some individuals also attempted to prevent funerary rituals related to Bhat’s cremation, and a hand grenade was hurled at the family’s home.[2][3][lower-alpha 2] Her death and the events that followed spread panic in the area, with both Hindus and Muslims expressing apprehensions and rumours of more targeted killings and rapes.[6][8] Several Hindu families in the region, including all remaining ones in the Qazi Bagh neighbourhood, fled the Kashmir Valley as a result.[2][1]
Investigation[edit | edit source]
After the murder, a police complaint was filed for murder, criminal conspiracy and terrorism under the Indian penal code and TADA. But an investigation did not materialise.[1] A postmortem examination reportedly concluded that Bhat had been raped prior to killing.[5][6][lower-alpha 3] According to journalist Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, Bhat’s murder was not seen as "high-profile."[1] In 2025, the murder case was transferred to the special investigation agency (SIA) of Jammu and Kashmir police.[9] The police statement did not mention rape.[9] The SIA denied the accusation of Bhat passing information to the police and said that her murder followed the prevalent pattern of "targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits during the 1990s."[1] In August 2025, eight locations in Srinagar were raided by the SIA in relation to the murder, including the houses of former JKLF militant Yasin Malik and others.[9][lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ The police has denied the accusation of Bhat being an informant, and said that the murder followed the prevalent pattern of "targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits during the 1990s."[1]
- ↑ According to a 2016 memoir written by a neighbour, who had heard about the grenade from another individual, the grenade did not explode.[2] However, a cousin of Bhat who was present at the house at the time of the attack recounted in a 2025 interview to Indian Express that the grenade had caused an explosion.[3]
- ↑ As reported after the incident and in several later reports, including those by Human Rights Watch.[5] In a 2016 memoir about the aftermath of her death and cremation, a neighbour noted that upon seeing her body, "it became clear … that she had been violated and sexually assaulted before being killed."[2] In a 2025 story for ThePrint, however, her family claimed that the post-mortem had "ruled out rape."[1]
- ↑ According to journalist Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, Bhat's killing had coincided with the hospitalisation of Malik at SKIMS. According to a 'senior police official', Bhat's murder was related to the arrest of a JKLF affiliated employee at SKIMS, and Bhat was framed as an informant because she was Kashmiri Pandit.[1]
- ↑ Others whose houses were raided include former JKLF member Javeed Mir, Peer Noor ul Haq Shah, Reyaz Kabir Sheikh, Bashir Ahmad Gojri, Feroz Ahmad Khan, Kaiser Ahmad Tiploo, and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo.[9]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Kissu, Sagarika (17 August 2025). "A handwritten note, 2 signatures, only dead ends in Kashmir—Sarla Bhat murder is no easy case". The Print.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Zutshi 2016.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Sharma, Arun (14 August 2025). "A cousin remembers family's ordeal after militants killed Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat in 1990". Indian Express.
- ↑ Banerjee 2017, p. 15.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Rape in Kashmir: A Crime of War (Report). Asia Watch (A Division of Human Rights Watch) and Physicians for Human Rights. 1993.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Manchanda 2001, p. 62.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Khan 2010, pp. 107–108.
- ↑ Banerjee 2017, p. 16.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Ashiq, Peerzada (12 August 2025). "36 years on, police raid 8 locations in Kashmiri Pandit nurse's killing case in Srinagar". The Hindu.
Bibliography[edit | edit source]
- Banerjee, Argha (2017), "'Refugee in My Own Country': Trauma and Memory in the Writings of Kashmiri Pandits in Exile", in Majoul, Bootheina (ed.), On Trauma and Traumatic Memory, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 9–28
- Khan, Nyla Ali (2010), Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan, Palgrave Macmillan
- Manchanda, Rita (2001), "Guns and Burqa: Women in the Kashmir Conflict", in Manchanda, Rita (ed.), Women, War and Peace in South Asia: Beyond Victimhood to Agency, SAGE Publications, pp. 42–101
- Zutshi, Indu Bushan (2016), "She was killed because she was an informant; no harm will come to you", in Gigoo, Siddhartha; Sharma, Varad (eds.), A Long Dream of Home: The Persecution, Exile and Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, Bloomsbury Publishing