More than three decades after Kashmiri Pandit poet and scholar Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul were abducted from their home and killed, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) of Jammu and Kashmir conducted simultaneous searches at nine locations on Wednesday as part of a renewed investigation into the case.
The searches were conducted at six locations in Rajouri district, two in Jammu and one in Kashmir, officials familiar with the operation said. The case, initially registered at a police station in Dooru, Anantnag, has since been taken over by the SIA.
The agency is investigating suspected links between individuals and properties targeted in the searches and the conspiracy behind the killings. Officials did not immediately disclose the identities of those searched or whether any material was seized.
Premi and his son, residents of Soaf Shali village in Kokernag, Anantnag, were abducted from their home in 1990. They were allegedly tortured and shot dead, and their bodies were later found hanging from a tree.
Premi was a prominent Kashmiri writer and scholar who advocated communal harmony, national integration and ties between Kashmir’s communities. He had also participated in India’s freedom movement.
For years, the killings remained unresolved, with investigators unable to establish the full sequence of events or identify all those allegedly involved.
The SIA’s latest investigation has, according to officials, uncovered details of a wider conspiracy and identified alleged perpetrators and associates. The agency is examining how the abduction was planned and carried out and whether the killings formed part of a broader campaign targeting Kashmiri Pandit civilians.
Premi’s surviving son, Rajender, welcomed Wednesday’s searches and called for similar investigations into other unresolved cases involving members of the community.
“My father and my younger brother were kidnapped and assassinated. We all support the raids,” Rajender said.
He said the killing had been described at the time as an attack on Kashmir’s tradition of communal coexistence and appealed to the authorities to ensure justice for affected families.
“I want everyone to get justice. I want all the affected families to be brought to justice, and the criminals to be punished,” he said.
The searches follow a recent breakthrough in another high-profile case involving the killing of a Kashmiri Pandit.
In June, the SIA filed a 737-page chargesheet in the 1990 killing of Sarla Bhat, a nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences. The agency identified jailed Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik as the alleged mastermind behind her abduction, torture and murder.
Bhat was abducted near the hospital where she worked and was later killed at Omer Colony in Srinagar’s Malbagh area on April 18, 1990.
The cases form part of a wider investigation into targeted killings during the onset of militancy in Kashmir. Several prominent Kashmiri Pandits, including lawyer Tika Lal Taploo, High Court judge Neelkanth Ganjoo and Doordarshan broadcaster Lassa Kaul, were killed during the period.
The violence and subsequent insurgency triggered a mass displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in the early 1990s. Estimates of the number of people killed vary, while community organisations have for years called for a comprehensive investigation into the killings and the circumstances surrounding the displacement.
The SIA’s renewed investigation into the Premi case could shed further light on one of the killings that became emblematic of the violence against Kashmiri Pandits during the early years of the insurgency.
