Kashmir Impulse Desk
Srinagar, Aug 24
State Investigation Agency has reopened its investigation into the 1998 Wandhama massacre, in which 23 Kashmiri Pandits were killed, as part of a broader review of unsolved targeted killings from the height of militancy in the Valley.
The agency is pursuing fresh leads to identify those responsible for the killings and determine the roles of militants and their alleged associates, India Today reported.
The SIA has conducted searches at several locations in Kashmir in connection with the Wandhama killings and the 1989 assassination of Kashmiri Pandit leader Tika Lal Taploo.
It has also intensified investigations into the killings of Taploo and former judge Neelkanth Ganjoo.
Twenty-three people, including nine women and four children, were killed in Wandhama village in Ganderbal district on January 25, 1998, when militants entered the homes of Kashmiri Pandit families.
The case remained unresolved for decades.
Taploo, a lawyer and then Jammu and Kashmir BJP vice-president, was shot dead outside his Srinagar home in September 1989. Ganjoo, who had sentenced JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat to death, was killed in Srinagar on November 4 that year.
The agency has also revisited the cases involving nurse Sarla Bhat and writer Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul.
In June, the SIA filed a 737-page chargesheet in the Sarla Bhat murder case, naming jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik as an alleged mastermind, the report said.
