Srinagar: A day after J&K police announced the arrest of two absconding assassins of Moulvi Mohammad Farooq, the family of Sarwanand Koul Premi, a well-known Kashmiri Pandit writer who was killed along with his son allegedly by militants in April 1990 has sought reopening of the case.
Farooq had been killed 33 years back.
The family has asked the J&K government to take the case of the father-son duo’s killing to a logical conclusion.
“We praise the J&K police for cracking the assassination case of Moulvi Mohammad Farooq after 33 years… We once again urge upon the J&K Lt Governor as well Government of India for not only reopening of this case and taking this case to a logical conclusion, so as to bring the culprits of this whole conspiracy to justice,” Rajinder Premi, son of Sarwanand Koul Premi said.
The family said Sarwanand Premi, 65, and his younger son Verinder Koul, 27, were killed by the militants in April 1990 after they were kidnapped from their home at native village in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district. Within a week after the incident, the Premi family left Kashmir.
The family said an FIR was registered in police station Dooru Anantnag, but this case was closed as untraced after a brief period, as no effective and expeditious investigation was done, The Family said the Police had arrested eight suspects involved, but later the case was closed as untraced.
Rajinder Premi said the family had approached the authorities with the request of handing this case to CBI for an expeditious and effective investigation, but due to unknown reasons was not allowed by the then J&K government.
They said the case of the father-son killing was not reopened despite the recommendations of the state Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in 2012.
Last year, the Jammu and Kashmir government recognised the literary contribution of Sarwanand Premi, who was conferred the lifetime achievement award posthumously on Republic Day. Sarwanand Premi authored more than three dozen books, which include translations of the “Bhagavad Gita” into Urdu and ‘Ramayana’ into Kashmir. He also translated into Kashmiri Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Geetanjali’.
