Men on trial over girl’s gang rape and murder

Eight Hindu men accused in the gang rape and killing of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state pleaded not guilty yesterday in their first court appearance.

The child’s battered body was found in a forest in January, a week after she went missing while grazing her family’s ponies. Police say the accused men planned the child’s kidnapping for over a month as part of a plan to scare her Muslim nomadic tribe away from the area.

Police said the child was sedated and held captive at a Hindu temple where she was repeatedly raped before being strangled and bludgeoned to death.

The court yesterday instructed the investigators to make sure that the accused men had copies of all the charges they faced before the next hearing on April 26.