Jammu and Kashmir’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) has reopened its investigation into the 1998 killing of 23 Kashmiri Pandits in the village of Wandhama, as authorities revisit a series of unresolved militant-era attacks, officials familiar with the development said.
Heavily armed gunmen entered homes in Wandhama in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district on Jan. 25, 1998, and shot dead 23 Kashmiri Pandits, including nine women and four children.
The case remained unresolved for nearly three decades.
Investigators have recently carried out searches at multiple locations in the Kashmir Valley and are pursuing fresh leads to identify militants and people suspected of having assisted them, sources said.
The renewed investigation is part of a broader effort by the SIA to reopen and pursue cases involving the killings of Kashmiri Pandits during the peak of militancy in the late 1980s and 1990s.
The agency has also stepped up investigations into the killings of Kashmiri Pandit leader Tika Lal Taploo and former judge Neelkanth Ganjoo, according to sources.
The development follows recent action in other long-pending cases. In June, the SIA filed a chargesheet in the 1990 killing of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat, while investigators earlier this month conducted searches in connection with the killing of writer Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul.
Taploo, a lawyer and former Jammu and Kashmir BJP vice-president, was shot dead near his home in Srinagar in September 1989, shortly after the outbreak of an armed insurgency in the region.
Ganjoo was shot dead in Srinagar in November 1989. He had earlier sentenced JKLF militant Maqbool Bhat to death.
Officials said investigators were examining old evidence, revisiting suspects and pursuing new leads in an effort to identify surviving accused and others who may have supported the attacks.
