SIX MEN JAILED OVER CHILD RAPE IN INDIA
Three police
officers were found guilty of destroying evidence and sentenced to five years
in prison.
The victim, who
belonged to a Muslim nomadic tribe, was found in a forest near Kathua city in
January 2018.
The case sparked
widespread anger and made headlines when Hindu right-wing groups protested over
the men's arrest.
Eight people,
including a former government official, four policemen and a minor, were
charged in connection with the crime. One of them has been acquitted and the
minor is set to be tried separately.
All of them had
pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
The eight-year-old
girl went missing in the new year of 2018 and her battered body was discovered
almost three weeks later.
According to
investigators, the child was confined to a local temple for several days and
given sedatives that kept her unconscious. The charge sheet alleged that she
was "raped for days, tortured and then finally murdered".
They added that the
child was targeted because the men wished to terrorise the tribe - known as
Gujjars - into leaving.
A child is sexually
abused every 15 minutes in India, according to government crime figures up to
2016, and there has been a steady rise in offences against children.
The BBC's Geeta Pandey
in Delhi says India is home to the largest number of sexually abused children
in the world, but there is a reluctance to talk about the topic so the real
number of cases could be much higher.
Seven men were tried
in a specially convened fast-track court on Monday and six were found guilty.
Investigators said
that Sanjhi Ram, a 60-year-old retired government officer, allegedly planned
the crime with the help of police officers Surinder Verma, Anand Dutta, Tilak
Raj and Deepak Khajuria.
Ram's son, Vishal,
his nephew, a juvenile, and his friend, Parvesh Kumar, were also accused over
the rape and murder.
While Vishal was
acquitted, Ram, Khajuria and Kumar have been sentenced for life. The remaining
three have been handed five-year sentences.
After the verdict,
the lawyer representing the child's family told BBC Punjabi that it was a
"victory of constitutional spirit". He added that "the whole
country fought this case, irrespective of religious affiliations".
The lawyer
representing the accused said that despite the conviction, the case was based
on "circumstantial evidence" and has pleaded for minimum punishment
for the six men. He added that there were mitigating circumstances, including
the fact that the men were the sole breadwinners in their families.
When I met the
girl's mother, she was on a hilltop alongside her elder daughter and several
other members of the family.
They were surrounded
by their sheep and goats, which were grazing, and they did not know that this
verdict had come out.
When I informed the
girl's mother that six of the accused had been convicted, she began to cry and
blessed me for being the bearer of good news.
She said the family
could not afford to travel to Pathankot to hear the verdict because selling
livestock was their only source of income.
"I have always
believed in justice and God gave me strength to fight for it," she said.
She added that if
the two main accused were not sentenced to death, she and her husband would
challenge the sentence. "We will not eat or drink but we will get justice
for our daughter," she said.
The girl's elder
sister, who is 15, says she and other girls her age now live in "constant
fear of Hindu men" and never leave the house unless they are accompanied
by an older family member.
Although promptly
reported in Indian-administered Kashmir, it only made headlines in the rest of
the country in April after Hindu groups marched in support of the accused.
But as details of
the injuries inflicted on the child became public, horrified Indians protested
across the country.
Outrage grew after
two ministers from India's governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused men, whose community was
involved in a land dispute with the nomadic tribe the girl belonged to.
It became one among
many high-profile cases that prompted India to pass a new law which introduced
death penalty for anyone convicted of raping a child under 12.
The child's mother
has demanded capital punishment for two of those convicted - retired government
officer Sanji Ram and police officer Deepak Khajuria - claiming that they were
the "masterminds" behind the crime.
"My daughter's
face still haunts me and that pain will never leave me. When I see other
children of her age playing around me, it breaks my heart," she told the
BBC.
Despite the outrage,
the victim's parents said they felt threatened in Kathua, where the community
is predominantly Hindu.
The sentiment around
the case prompted the top court to move the trial out of Jammu and Kashmir to a
court in Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab and start the trial afresh.
FROM .bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-
No comments