Muslims flee Jammu village at centre of vendetta rape
RASANA’S FEW REMAINING INHABITANTS ARE RELUCTANT TO SPEAK TO OUTSIDERS
There are no Muslims left in the village of Rasana, which has become a symbol of India’s rape crisis after the brutal murder of an eightyear-old Muslim girl blamed on Hindu men.
Police say the girl was raped and killed as part of an attempt by some of the village’s majority Hindus to evict Bakarwal Muslim nomads, who graze their cattle in the hills in the summer months.
It seems to have worked: the girl’s family have headed for the Kashmir hills under police protection. Other Muslim families in the community of around 100 people all left after the rape in January.
At the empty home of the dead girl’s family, five armed police kept guard half asleep in chairs outside.
Police say the child was drugged, held captive in a Hindu temple for five days, and repeatedly raped before being beaten to death.
Her anonymous grave in orange earth partially covered by weeds is in a nearby village in Kathua district, about 60 kilometres from the region’s main city Jammu.
Media reports said Hindus in Rasana refused to allow the girl to be buried there.
Hindus and Muslims had lived together relatively peacefully in Rasana until the killing, though each side had made sporadic police complaints about the other, according to official documents.
The rape went virtually unnoticed in India until Hindu lawyers staged protests outside a Jammu court last week trying to stop police registering the charge sheet. Hindu right-wing groups say the investigation is biased.
The release of horrific details of the murder of the girl, whose identity cannot be disclosed by law, made national headlines and sparked protests against the lack of action on sexual violence in India.
The eruption of anger has reminded many of the outrage and demonstrations triggered by the fatal gang-rape of a Delhi student on a bus in 2012 that also made headlines around the world.
‘Heinous and shameful’
Meanwhile, President Ram Nath Kovind yesterday condemned the Kathua rape and murder case as “heinous” and “shameful” and said there was a need to introspect on “what kind of a society we are developing into”.
The president said crimes against children are a deep concern for humanity and there was a need for a firm resolve to provide safety to children.
“Such an incident happening in our country after 70 years of independence is shameful. We all have to think where we are going. What kind of society are we developing into. What are we giving to future generation”, he said.
The president was addressing the 6th convocation of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in Kakriyal.