On Monday (August 24), Jammu and Kashmir’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) reopened the investigation into the 1998 Wandhama massacre. It is one of the many cases related to the killing of Kashmiri Pandits that have been reopened for investigation since 2023 by the SIA, a specialised investigation agency set up in 2021 on the pattern of the National Investigation Agency. Here’s what to know.
Killings of Kashmiri Pandits
When militancy started in Jammu and Kashmir in the late 1980s, there were some targeted killings of both Muslims and Kashmiri Hindus, locally known as Pandits. Among the Pandits killed were some prominent faces like Neelkanth Ganjoo, a judge who had sentenced the separatist group Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat to death, and Tika Lal Taploo, the then vice-president of the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir.
In later years, there were three big massacres of Kashmiri Pandits in Sangramapora, Wandhama, and Nadimarg.
Sangramapora: During the intervening night of March 21-22, 1997, Seven Pandits were killed at Sangrampora village in Budgam district.
Wandhama: On the night of January 25-26, a group of militants descended on Wandhama village in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, assembled the Kashmiri Pandits at one place and opened indiscriminate fire. It led to the killing of 23 Kashmiri Pandits, including four children and nine women.
Nadimarg: On March 24, 2003, 24 Kashmir Pandits were killed at Nadimarg village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
A report compiled by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in 2008 on the basis of a survey of its own cases revealed that militants had killed 209 Kashmiri Pandits from 1989 to 2008. Of them, 109 were killed in 1990 alone. The total number include the Sangrampora, Wandhama and Nadimarg massacres.
The police had registered 140 cases in different police stations across the Valley, most of which were closed as untraced by the police.
In March 2010, the state government led by then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly that 219 Kashmiri Pandits had been killed by militants since 1989.
In 2011, the Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti, a Kashmiri Pandit organisation based in Srinagar, said at least 399 Pandits had been killed since 1990 — 75% of them in the first year itself.
Petition for re-investigation
In July 2017, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising the then Chief Justice of India J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud dismissed a petition filed by “Roots in Kashmir”, a Kashmiri Pandit organisation, seeking re-investigation into all cases related to the killings of Pandits in Kashmir. The Bench said that 27 years have passed and the evidence is “unlikely to be available”.
In December 2022, the top court also dismissed a curative petition filed by Roots in Kashmir seeking a probe into the “genocide” of Kashmiri Pandits. The Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a well-known Kashmiri human rights organisation, had termed the Supreme Court order “a complete departure from established law that ‘crime never dies’, and there exists no time limitation for justice under Indian and international law with regard to serious crimes such as murder”.
“The killings of Kashmiri Pandits, other minorities and all violence in Jammu and Kashmir have never been fairly and credibly investigated. Thus far, Jammu and Kashmir has faced widespread, systematic and systemic violence, largely at the hands of the Indian State,” the JKCCS had said. “To date, despite the presence of evidence, virtually no prosecutions have been conducted against armed forces personnel in civilian courts.”
SIA reopens cases
Seven months after the Supreme Court dismissed the curative petition of Roots in Kashmir, the SIA reopened the first case related to the murder of Kashmiri Pandits. The case related to the killing of Kashmiri Pandit judge Neelkanth Ganjoo, allegedly by JKLF militants in November 1989 in Srinagar. Ganjoo had sentenced Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, the JKLF founder, to death.
After Ganjoo, the SIA reopened the case related to the abduction and murder of a nurse, Sarla Bhat, who was abducted from the hostel of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar in 1990. The SIA also reopened the case related to the killing of poet and writer Sarvanand Premi Koul and his son in south Kashmir in 1990, and the 1989 killing of BJP leader Tika Lal Taploo in Srinagar.
While there has not been any significant progress in the case related to Ganjoo’s killing, the SIA has already filed chargesheet in the killing of Bhat, charging five people including jailed JKLF chairman Yasin Malik. Of the five accused, three have already been killed while one is in Pakistan.
Sources in the SIA told The Indian Express that the Wandhama massacre case was reopened as part of the agency’s efforts to reinvestigate the killings of Kashmiri Pandits and gather fresh evidence to identify those responsible.
“SIA Kashmir has already launched a focused investigation into these decades-old cases as a mission of utmost importance. All-out efforts are underway to unravel the underlying conspiracies, unearth and establish credible evidence, and identify the perpetrators strictly based on evidence and witness testimony,” said a senior SIA official. “The objective is clear: to bring these cases to their logical conclusion on merits, ensuring that truth prevails and those responsible are brought to justice.”
The 1998 Wandhama massacre is one of the many cases related to the killing of Kashmiri Pandits that have been reopened for investigation since 2023 by the SIA. Photo: Shuaib Masoodi 
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