The Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed a plea from Sanji Ram, the mastermind behind the 2018 rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua, refusing to suspend his life sentence.
According to the chargesheets filed by the crime branch, the abduction, rape and killing of the Bakerwal girl was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority nomadic community from the area.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising said the case should be transferred to Chandigarh due to proximity to Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and the incidents of obstruction of police personnel by lawyers of the local court.
The application came up for hearing on Thursday before a division bench of justices Tejinder Singh Dhindsa and Lalit Batra through video conferencing during which the counsel for Jammu and Kashmir R S Cheema requested for a new date that was granted.
The apex court directed members of the bar not to obstruct judicial proceedings in the Kathua gang rape and murder case in Jammu and Kashmir
Elaborate security arrangements have been made in and around the court and in Kathua in view of the pronouncement of the judgement, officials said Sunday.
A shoddily drafted application for birth certificate was the loose string that led to the unravelling of the conspiracy to proclaim one of those accused in the 2018 gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua as a juvenile.
The charge sheet was committed to sessions court in Kathua which has fixed January 24 as the next date of hearing in the case.
'There are communal overtones in the chargesheet.' 'Hindus and Muslims live peacefully in Jammu and by highlighting such facts in the chargesheet they are committing a conspiracy against Jammu.' The reason: A Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the Kathua rape-cum-murder case (see box below) and the deportation of Rohingya immigrants. Speaking to Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf, B S Salathia, Jammu Bar Association explains their call for a bandh and the communal divide it has brought about in Jammu.
The rape-and-murder of the eight-year-old Bakerwal community girl has created a controversy after lawyers in Jammu called for a shutdown on Wednesday, demanding the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Breaking her silence on the series of allegations levelled by her former ally, the BJP, Mehbooba said it was sad to see the saffron party disown its own initiative and label it a "soft approach".
Political and communal divide in Jammu and Kashmir has assumed such proportions that even the horrifying rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl is not bringing society together, writes Athar Parvaiz.
'The people of the state can be won over by love, and not by swords.'
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