SRINAGAR: J&K police’s Special Investigation Agency (SIA) conducted raids Tuesday at the residence of jailed Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik and seven other Srinagar locations over the murder of a Kashmiri Pandit woman hospital staffer by terrorists 35 years ago. The action in Sarla Bhatt’s murder case came a week after lieutenant-governor (LG) Manoj Sinha vowed reinvestigations into such terror killings.Anantnag’s Bhatt, 27, was kidnapped from Sheri Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKICC) in Srinagar on April 14, 1990, by JKLF-linked militants on claims of being a police informer. Her bullet-ridden body was found four days later. Malik is serving a life term in Delhi’s Tihar Jail after a 2022 conviction for terror-related crimes.“These strategic searches at eight locations throughout Srinagar have resulted in recovery of some incriminating evidence, which will help in unearthing the whole terrorist conspiracy with an ultimate aim to deliver Justice to the victim and her family,” SIA said in a statement Tuesday.The searches also spanned homes of former JKLF lynchpins such as Javid Mir, Peer Noor ul Haq Shah alias Air Marshal Noor Khan, Reyaz Kabir, Bashir Ahmad Gojri, Feroz Ahmad Khan, Kaiser Ahmad Tiploo and Ghulam Mohammad Taploo, all residents of Srinagar.This is the second major terror case reopened in J&K. The first was in 2023 when SIA started a probe into the 1989 killing of Neelkanth Ganjoo, a retired Kashmiri Pandit judge. Ganjoo had sentenced JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Butt to death in 1968 for killing a police officer in Kupwara. Butt was hanged in Tihar Jail on Feb 11, 1984. Ganjoo was shot dead by terrorists on Nov 4, 1989 in Srinagar.A 2008 J&K police report revealed that 209 Pandits were killed by terrorists since 1989. Community groups insist the number is higher.Last week, Sinha had pledged to have such terror cases reopened. “I assure the family members of civilian martyrs that I will not rest until every family that has been a victim of the terrorists’ atrocities gets justice,” the LG had said at an Aug 5 event to mark the sixth anniversary of Article 370’s abrogation. While most J&K political parties have been silent on the move, BJP has hailed the reinvestigations and raids.