Jammu and Kashmir’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) has reopened the Wandhama massacre case, 28 years after the militants gunned down 23 Kashmiri Hindus in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal.

Sources in the SIA said the 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.”

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The incident

The massacre dates back to 1998. On the night of January 25-26 in 1998, a militant group wearing army fatigues appeared in Wandhama village in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.

They engaged in conversation with Kashmiri Pandits and asked them to assemble at one place, before opening fire and killing 23 people, including four children and nine women.

The victims belonged to four families who had stayed back and not migrated from Kashmir when militancy erupted in the Valley in early 1990. They also included five guests who had come from Jammu to visit their relatives in Wandhama.

The aftermath

The police blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) for the massacre. The killings triggered protests by Kashmiri Pandits across Jammu and Delhi. On January 26, 1998, protestors in Delhi marched towards the National Human Rights Commission and clashed with police, leading to injury to nine protestors.

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The then Prime Minister, Inder Kumar Gujral, flew to Kashmir and then to Wandhama to join the mourners, accompanied by then Principal Secretary N N Vohra, J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Governor K V Krishna Rao.

Reopening old cases

The reopening of the Wandhama massacre is the latest case reopened by the investigating agency. Sources say that it has also reopened the case related to the murder of Tika Lal Taploo.

Taploo was killed on September 13, 1989, and is considered the first targeted killing in the Valley. The 59-year-old Taploo, an advocate by profession, was the BJP’s Vice President for Jammu and Kashmir and also a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Over the last three years, the investigating agency has reopened several cases related to the killings of the Kashmiri Pandits. In 2023, the agency reopened the case of Neelkanth Ganjoo. A retired judge, Ganjoo was killed on November 4, 1989, in Srinagar. He is believed to have been targeted as he had sentenced Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front founder Maqbool Bhat to death in 1968. Bhat was finally hanged in 1984 and buried inside Tihar Jail.

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In August, 2025, the SIA reopened the case of Sarla Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar. She was abducted by terrorists from her hostel on April 18, 1990, and her body was found the next day with multiple bullet wounds.

While there has not been much progress in Ganjoo’s case, the SIA has filed a chargesheet in the killing of Bhat and charged five JKLF operatives, including its chief Yasin Malik.