The State Investigation Agency (SIA) of Jammu & Kashmir Police has reopened its investigation into the 1998 Wandhama massacre, in which 23 Kashmiri Pandits — including nine women and four children — were killed in Ganderbal district of central Kashmir. The probe, relaunched after nearly 28 years, aims to identify the terrorists and their associates responsible for one of the deadliest targeted killings of the Kashmiri Pandit community during the militancy era.

What Happened on 25 January 1998

On the eve of Republic Day, a group of terrorists dressed in army uniforms entered Wandhama village in Ganderbal, engaged residents in conversation, and directed Pandit families to gather at a single location before opening fire. The 23 victims belonged to four families who had chosen to remain in the Valley despite the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits that began in the early 1990s. An FIR was registered at Ganderbal police station, but the case remained unsolved for nearly three decades. Investigators have previously linked the massacre to terrorists associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Scope of the Reopened Probes

The Wandhama case is not the only cold case the SIA has revived. The agency has simultaneously reopened investigations into the 1989 killing of Tika Lal Taploo, a prominent lawyer and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vice-president in J&K, who was shot dead near his residence in Srinagar in September 1989. Also reopened is the probe into the murder of Justice Neelkanth Ganjoo, who had sentenced Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Maqbool Bhat to death and was subsequently shot dead by suspected JKLF operatives at Hari Singh Street on 4 November 1989.

Notably, the SIA has also recently concluded its investigation into the 1990 killing of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhatt, filing a 737-page chargesheet that names banned JKLF chief Yasin Malik as a key accused in her kidnapping and murder. Earlier this month, the agency carried out raids at multiple locations in connection with the 1990 double murder of Kashmiri Pandit writer and social worker Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul in Anantnag district.

Recent Raids and Investigative Activity

Officials confirmed that the SIA has conducted raids at several locations across J&K as part of these reopened probes. The agency has not disclosed the specific locations or individuals targeted, but indicated that the operations are ongoing. The raids signal an active, ground-level phase of the reinvestigations rather than a procedural review.

The Broader Pattern

The simultaneous reopening of multiple cold cases — spanning the 1989–1998 period — reflects what officials describe as a wider institutional effort to revisit unresolved terrorist killings from Kashmir's militancy years. This comes amid sustained pressure from Kashmiri Pandit organisations and civil society groups who have long demanded accountability for the violence that accompanied the community's forced displacement. Whether these reinvestigations result in prosecutions — given the passage of nearly three decades and the death or disappearance of many potential witnesses — remains to be seen.