Kathua rape murder case: Accused to undergo narco test; next trial on April 28
New Delhi : The trial for Kathua rape and murder began on April 16, 2018. The case is related to brutal gang rape of an eight-year-old, following murder by eight people in the Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir. The court asked to undergo narco tests on the accused. The entire nation is staging protest against the heinous crime. The trial began a day after protests were staged across India by outraged citizens. The next court hearing will be conducted on April 28.
Among the accused in the Kathua rape murder case, there is a juvenile against whom a separate charge sheet was filed. As such, the juveline and the other accused will be in front of separate trials. While seven of the accused perpetrators will be questioned in the session court, the chief judicial magistrate of Kathua will hold the trial for the juvenile. It is believed that the accused list include four police officers and a retired government official, all of whom have sexually assaulted a minor girl and then murdered her in January this year.
Few days back, the Supreme Court took a strong note of some lawyers who were obstructing the judicial process in the Kathua case. However, the Supreme Court's actions in the matter and the Indian civil society's demand for justice in the Kathua case have not simplified the challenges faced by the lawyer of the victim's family, lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat. On Sunday, she said that she feared for her life as she might get raped or murdered. She added that she had been called anti-Hindu and boycotted socially.
The charge sheets filed by the J&K crime branch state that the abduction, rape, and killing of the minor Bakerwal girl was part of a carefully planned strategy aimed at forcing the minority nomadic community out of the area.
Just before the Kathua trial starts, a group of former civil servants on Sunday issued a strongly worded open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, holding him responsible "more than anyone else" for the "terrifying state of affairs" in the country. The letter asked Modi to check India's "free fall into anarchy" by taking tough action against the accused of the Kathua and Unnao rape cases and the perpetrators of other such crimes across the country. Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers, Chandra Prakash Ganga and Lal Singh have resigned following accusation of attending a rally in support of the alleged offenders of the crime.
