J&K: SIA reopens probe into 1998 massacre of 23 Kashmiri Pandits

Srinagar, Aug 25 (IANS) After 28 years, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) of J&K Police has reopened the investigation into the 1998 Wandhama massacre in which 23 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in Ganderbal district.

A statement by the SIA said the agency has relaunched the investigation into several cases involving the murder of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, including the Wandhama killings. Officials said the probe seeks to identify the terrorists and their associates and establish their role in the massacre.

On January 25, 1998, terrorists entered homes of Kashmiri Pandit families in Wandhama village of central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district and killed 23 people, including nine women and four children.

On the eve of Republic Day, a group of terrorists dressed in army uniforms appeared in the village, engaged in conversation with community members and asked Pandit families to assemble at one place before opening fire.

The victims belonged to four families who had stayed back in the Valley when militancy erupted in the early 1990s. Police registered an FIR at Ganderbal police station, but the case remained unsolved for nearly three decades.

Police said the massacre was carried out by terrorists linked with Lashkar‑e‑Taiba (LeT).

The reopening of the Wandhama case is part of efforts to re‑examine unresolved terror cases and bring perpetrators to justice. Alongside this, the SIA has reopened investigations into the 1989 killings of Tika Lal Taploo and Justice Neelkanth Ganjoo.

Taploo, a prominent lawyer and BJP vice‑president in J&K, was shot dead near his residence in Srinagar in September 1989. Justice Ganjoo, who had sentenced JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat to death, was shot dead by suspected JKLF terrorists at Hari Singh Street on November 4, 1989.

Officials said the SIA recently raided several places across J&K as part of these reopened probes. The agency also concluded its investigation into the 1990 killing of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhatt, filing a 737‑page chargesheet naming banned JKLF chief Yasin Malik as key accused in her kidnapping and murder.

Earlier this month, the SIA carried out raids at multiple locations in connection with the 1990 double murder of Kashmiri Pandit writer and social worker Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul in Anantnag district.

Officials said the reopening of these cases is part of a wider effort to revisit terrorist killings since separatist violence began in Kashmir in the early 1990s.

--IANS

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