Child’s rape and murder mired in religious politics
SRINAGAR: The girl, just eight years old, was grazing her family’s ponies on a chilly January day in the forests of the Himalayan foothills when she was kidnapped. Her raped and mutilated body was found in the woods a week later.
In 2012, the fatal gang rape of a young woman in the heart of India’s capital moved hundreds of thousands of Indians to take to the streets to demand stricter rape laws.
But the gang rape, torture and death of a Muslim girl in Indiancontrolled Kashmir has seen far different protests: Thousands of members of a radical Hindu group with links to the ruling party have marched to demand the release of the six men accused in the repeated rape and killing of the girl inside a Hindu temple.
Hundreds of Hindu lawyers have protested that the men, two of them police officers, are innocent.
The girl, who was savaged in the attacks, had enormous eyes, a quiet smile and one name – Asifa.
Police say the attack had been planned for over a month as a way to terrify the Bakarwals, a Muslim community of nomadic herders, into leaving the area.
Conflict had been brewing in recent years between Muslim nomads and local Hindus over land disputes. Hindus claimed the herders were encroaching on their lands. There had been scuffles after nomadic girls had been allegedly harassed by Hindu men.
“For some time now the tensions have been high between Muslims and some Hindus” in the area around Kathua, said Javaid Rahi, who runs Jammu-Kashmir Tribal Foundation, a non-profit group studying the state’s nomadic people.
“The crisis has especially deepened since the BJP (Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party) has come to the power and some fanatic Hindus in Jammu have communally polarised the atmosphere,” he said.
Police say the attack on Asifa was rooted in religious politics, with a group of local men planning to scare away the Bakarwals by simply kidnapping a girl.
But once they had Asifa, that plan was quickly forgotten. Forensic reports say she had been drugged with anti-anxiety medication, repeatedly raped, burned, bludgeoned with a rock and strangled.
Eventually, her corpse was thrown into the forest where it was found a week later.
On Monday, Hindu lawyers in Kathua tried to block police from filing their investigation report at the local court. They said the police investigation was flawed and claimed the six Hindu men accused in the attack had been framed.
The police were forced to call for backup before handing the report of their investigation to the judge.
Six men, including two police officers, are accused of being directly involved in the attacks on Asifa.
One of those policemen also allegedly joined in the search for her body. Two other policemen were arrested for attempts to destroy evidence.
The case has drawn sharp reactions from across the country.
“Too many BJP supporters seem willing to abandon their tough stand on sexual violence on the basis of religious prejudice.
“The police allege Asifa’s rape and murder was part of an effort to drive the Muslim community away from the area. Yet, for the local lawyers and other BJP supporters, the Hindu suspects and the Muslim victim were grounds for blocking prosecution of the case,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday. — AP