In a crime that has shaken the conscience of the entire nation, an eight-year old girl was continuously drugged, gang-raped thrice by her abductors, including a police officer, and held captive for seven days before being murdered mercilessly in Kathua. The deceased-victim faced this ordeal at the hands of inhuman hooligans showcasing animal tendencies.
The Police has filed the charge sheet in the case and revealed in totality the horrifying details of of the heinous crime. The girl was abducted by the accused on 10th January in Jammu’s Kathua district while grazing horses in the farm near her home. Eight people have been charged in this case.
Sanji Ram, a former revenue department official was the mastermind in the grave and inhuman crime. He was the main conspirator and planned the crime. Shockingly, four policemen including a sub-inspector, a head constable and two special police officers were also involved. Other accused include Sanji Ram’s son, his nephew and a friend of his nephew. In a blunt manifestation of their animal instincts, Sanji Ram’s nephew had called Sanji Ram’s son, Vishal Jagrota in Meerut over the phone informing about the abduction of the innocent girl in her tender years and asked him to come to Kathua “if he wanted to satisfy his lust”. The lewd men kidnapped the girl who, being in her childhood years, could not have in the wildest of her dreams anticipated the nefarious intentions of the accused. During her captivity, the accused administered sedatives to the victim and subjected her to rape at regular intervals including gang rape. The girl was held in captivity until 14th January before Sanji Ram’s nephew killed her and bludgeoned her with a stone in order to ensure that the victim could not survive. Before this, they had attempted to kill her in an even more barbaric manner, and to provide those graphic details are beyond the scope of this article.
The body of the victim was discovered on 17th January not far from the crime scene. The police along with the investigators and a first-class executive magistrate made a thorough examination of the crime scene. Some hair strands and blood stained wooden sticks were also discovered. These hair strands recovered from the spot of occurrence where the body was dumped have been sent to New Delhi for DNA profiling. One of the strands has been verified with the girl’s DNA profile.
At a time when the nation and the entire system should have stood together demanding justice for the departed soul, some lawyers sought to create ruckus over the whole situation. Shockingly, those who are supposed to provide access to justice for the ordinary citizens have tried to hamper the legal process and tried to prevent the police from charge-sheeting and arresting the accused. The police have also registered an FIR against the lawyers who made this shameful attempt of hampering the ordinary course of law.
After the Nirbhaya rape case, huge protests had taken place and archaic laws were strengthened with the hope that this will change the dismal situation of women safety in the country. But it seems that not much has changed with the lax attitude of the authorities and reluctance of the concerned governments to take concrete action. What happened is totally unacceptable and intolerable. This incident in Kathua classifies as the rarest of rare crimes that has plunged the entire society into a state of deep shock. It is hoped that the courts will take into account the inhuman nature and the animal instincts of the perpetrators into account before deciding on the quantum of punishment. It goes without saying that such crimes deserve to be treated with an iron fist and an example must be set.