SRINAGAR : Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday described the rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua as “unimaginable brutality” that cannot go unpunished, and wondered how anybody can seek to protect the culprits.He also lashed out at the politics being played over the crime.
“How can anyone protect the culprits of such evil,” he asked, adding that the violence against the child was a crime against humanity. “It cannot go unpunished,” he said on Twitter.“What have we become if we allow politics to interfere with such unimaginable brutality perpetrated on an innocent child,” he tweeted.The minor, who belonged to the nomadic Bakerwal Muslim community, had disappeared from a spot near her house close to Rasana village in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir on January 10. A week later, her body was found in the same area.

A Special Investigation Team formed to probe the incident has arrested eight people, including two Special Police Officers (SPOs) and a head constable, who was charged with destroying evidence.Jammu has been on tenterhooks since the brutal rape and murder. The city’s bar association has opposed the action against the accused and alleged that minority Dogras were being targeted. While the local local bar association held a bandh, the Valley saw protests demanding justice for the victim.
Meanwhile,The Lawyers Forum for Democracy and Justice and Indian Association of People’s Lawyers have condemned the ‘obstruction’ by lawyers in filing the chalan in Asifa rape and murder case and have called it a ‘shameful blot on the legal community’ while appealing legal bodies to take action against the lawyers involved in it.

“We condemn the obstruction of the filing of charge sheet in the said matter as inhuman, illegal, unethical and shameful. We hope that better sense will prevail and the legal community facilitates justice rather than obstructing functioning of the criminal justice system,” Lawyers Forum for Democracy and Justices’ press release said as quoted by livelaw.inThe release accordingly called the obstruction a ‘shameful blot on the legal community’ and requested the bar council of Jammu and Kashmir and bar council of India to take appropriate disciplinary action against the erring advocates.
The crime branch of Jammu and Kashmir has recorded statements of 22 witnesses in connection with the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua is Jammu and Kashmir. As per the findings of the investigation, the motive of the crime was to drive away Bakarwal community.
The investigators have found that suspicion of cow slaughter by the Bakarwal community was one of the reasons leading to the brutal assault on the minor girl. Two charge sheets were filed against eight accused under various sections of the Ranbir Penal Code (equivalent of IPC) related to rape, illegal confinement, destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy.
The accused are Sanjhi Ram, his son Vishal, special police officers Deepak Khajuria and Surender Verma, head constable Tilak Raj, sub-inspector Anand Dutta, civilian Parvesh Kumar, and Sanjhi Ram’s minor nephew.
The chargesheet filed reveals that a particular community had a general impression that the Bakarwals indulge in cow slaughter and drug trafficking, which led to hatred and made the culprits commit the crime.