‘Bakarwals, Hindus living in harmony, media wrong about us’

The decades old relationship between the Bakarwal Muslim community in Rasana village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district and fellow villagers who are predominantly Hindu, was neither acrimonious nor has it become bitter now after the alleged gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from the Bakarwal community, allegedly by eight individuals, including one juvenile. This flies in the face of what is being portrayed by the international media and a very large section of the national media.

According to Kant Sharma, who was until recently the sarpanch (head) of Kota panchayat in Kathua district under which Rasana comes, every villager in the panchayat was sad over the misfortune that the girl and her family members had faced.

“Woh hamari bhi bachchi thi (She was our child too). We are all in shock. In our community, we treat every child, every member as part of one big family. I am more than 50 years old and the Bakarwals have been living with us from a time even before I was born. You can come and check if there have been any instances of dispute between the two communities all these years. The media is turning this whole incident to suit its narrative and no one is interested in talking to us. We (Bakarwals and Hindus) have been living together since ages and even today we met each other and shared our pain over this horrific crime. Why is the media painting this whole thing to suggest as if a section of the villagers are defending the crime just because it was perpetrated against the Bakarwals?” he asked.

According to him there was not an iota of truth in