| After Sarla Bhat chargesheet, SIA turns to poet Premi's 1990 gruesome double murder case | | SIA storms nine locations in renewed hunt for killers, conspirators of Kashmiri Pandit Poet and his son | |  Atul Sharma
Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 12: Within a month after filing a chargesheet in the heinous rape and murder case of Sarla Bhat, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) Kashmir has thrown its full weight behind cracking the 36-year-old case of the gruesome murder of Kashmiri Pandit poet-scholar Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul.
On Wednesday, SIA launched simultaneous raids at nine locations across Jammu and Kashmir in a renewed hunt for the killers and their surviving accomplices.
The coordinated searches spanned six sites in Rajouri district, two in Jammu, and one in Kashmir, all linked to an FIR first registered at Police Station Dooru in Anantnag decades ago and now absorbed into the SIA's expanding investigation into militancy-era killings of the Valley's Hindu minority. Officials familiar with the operation said the teams targeted properties and individuals connected to the conspiracy behind the 1990 abductions, though what — if anything — was recovered remains undisclosed.
The timing is no coincidence. Wednesday's crackdown comes weeks after the SIA delivered its biggest breakthrough yet in the Kashmiri Pandit killings of 1990: a 737-page chargesheet on June 29, 2026 naming jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik as the mastermind behind the abduction, torture and murder of SKIMS nurse Sarla Bhat — a case frozen for 34 years before investigators cracked it open.
During the wave of terrorism in Kashmir in the early 1990s, a planned execution took place to eliminate members of the minority community from the Valley. Prominent Kashmiri Pandits were murdered in an attempt to dismantle their leadership.
One such prominent personality was the renowned scholar and poet, Sarvanand Kaul Premi. A social activist and freedom fighter of the Quit India movement, Premi lived with his family in Jammu and Kashmir. He was deeply religious yet liberal. When attacks on Kashmiri Hindus began, his family tried to convince him to leave the Valley, but he refused, believing in the secular traditions of his homeland.
On the evening of 29 April 1990, three terrorists entered his house in Sof Shali village, Kokernag, Anantnag, and ordered the entire family to gather in one room. They demanded that all valuables — gold, jewellery, cash, pashmina garments, saris, shawls, and other belongings — be collected. Ornaments worn by family members were forcibly taken. After gathering the valuables, the terrorists asked the soft-spoken Premi to accompany them, assuring his frightened family that he would return.
Virendra Kaul, Premi's eldest son, requested to accompany his father to guide him back home in the dark. The terrorists agreed, and both father and son left the house.
They never returned. On 1 May 1990, their bodies were found. Both had been brutally murdered. The incident shocked the community. Premi's forehead, where he traditionally applied sandalwood paste, was pierced with a sharp weapon, and his skin peeled off. Their bodies bore marks of cigarette burns, broken limbs, and gouged eyes. They were later hanged and shot to ensure death.
A firm believer in secular India, Premi kept a rare manuscript of the holy Quran in his prayer room, treating it with reverence. Yet the killers showed no hesitation in brutally murdering this dignified man and his son. |
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