Bandh disrupts normal life in Kathua, highway blocked
JAMMU: The Jammu high court bar association’s call for a bandh (shutdown) on Wednesday against the alleged targeting of the Dogra community, for the rape and murder of an eight-yearold girl in January, disrupted normal life in parts of the Jammu region.
Protesters blocked the Jammu-pathankot national highway at Jatwal and Kootah Morh in Kathua, where the incident took place, and in Samba town. The major impact was felt in Kathua, Samba, and Jammu districts. Markets were deserted and schools closed.
The bar association organised the protest against what it calls an attempt to target the “minor- ity Dogras” and implicate them in the rape-murder of the minor girl, who belongs to the nomadic Muslim Bakerwal community. She was abducted in Kathua on January 10, kept captive, was sedated and raped in a temple before being murdered. Her body was discovered on 17 January.
The Jammu region has been tense since the rape-murder surfaced. The police have arrested eight people in the case.
The incident, followed by the refusal of the Peoples Democratic Party (Pdp)-bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government to conduct a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, has not only polarised the state politically but also caused a divide between Hindus and Muslims.
Lawyers, supported by social and political organisations, took out rallies on Wednesday. Clutching the Tricolour in their hands, the protestors shouted slogans against BJP ministers and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti while pressing for a CBI probe. Bar association president BS Slathia said the lawyers won’t’ budge from their demands.
Panthers Party chairman Harsh Dev Singh, who visited Kootah Morh with his supporters and blocked the highway for some time, said: “Our people, including our mothers, sisters and daughters, are agitating for the just and genuine demand for a CBI probe...”
He also lashed out at the BJP saying, “The party has meekly surrendered before the PDP and has given up all the issues of Jammu to remain in power.” The protest was peaceful.
An eight-year-old is sedated and gang-raped in a prayer hall and then bludgeoned to death. Among the perpetrators are a police officer and a juvenile. The post-mortem report found that the young child — our child, your child — had lacerations on the vagina and her death was caused by “asphyxia leading to cardiopulmonary arrest.”
The gruesome details of the pre-planned kidnapping, rape and murder of should make our collective blood boil, but that has not been the case in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a region deeply divided along religious lines.
The killing has i nstead sparked outrage across J&K, first because the Mehbooba Mufti government handed over the case to the crime branch following protests from the Bakerwal community to which the victim belonged.
It then took a communal turn after an outfit called the Hindu Ekta Manch was set up by politicians in support of the accused. At the forefront of those who rallied behind the accused are two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of the Mehbooba cabinet.
The fissures have only widened in a state where the two separate regions of J&K appear to be at war. Worse, Mehbooba’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP are involved in a dangerous tug of war despite being in an alliance stitched together in March 2015, in the hope of bridging the gulf between the two regions.
The late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (Mehbooba’s father), who was the principal architect of the alliance, was clear about why he wanted the BJP as an ally, despite opposition from his daughter, who had campaigned and sought votes on the main pretext of keeping the BJP out of the Valley.