Another Kathua rape accused to be tried as adult

PATHANKOT: The Pathankot district and sessions court has accepted a medical report of an accused in the Kathua rape-and-murder case, who claimed to be a juvenile, which ascertained his age to be more than 20 years, Special Public Prosecutor J K Chopra said.

Rejecting the plea of defence counsel, district and sessions judge Tajwinder Singh said the accused, Parvesh Kumar alias Mannu’, will be treated as an adult, the lawyer said.

Chopra said the court has declined his application and declared the accused as a ‘major’.

The medical report was submitted before the court earlier this week by the Jammu and Kashmir police’s crime branch after it resumed postsummer break.

The district and sessions judge had issued directions to the crime branch to conduct a bone ossification test to ascertain the age of Kumar, one of the eight accused in the brutal rape-and-murder case of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Kathua district of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir in January. Asked what the opinion of the doctors about the age of the accused was, Chopra said, “According to it (the medical opinion), his age is stated to be 20 plus.”

The fate of another accused, who has claimed to be a juvenile, is yet to be decided as the matter was pending before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.