Kathua Rape-Murder Case: Supreme Court Transfers the Matter to Pathankot

The Supreme Court on Monday stated that the Kathua rape and murder case will be transferred to Pathankot and day-to-day hearing will take place in the matter. The Court also permitted the Jammu and Kashmir government to appoint a prosecutor in the court in Pathankot. The decision by the Supreme Court came in the wake of the petition filed by the biological father of the victim, urging the transfer of the case to Chandigarh and also following the plea of the accused seeking handover the case to the CBI.

“I am satisfied with the police investigation and will not rest till justice is done in the case. I want the accused to be given exemplary punishment for their brutality,” the father of the victim told PTI.

In its report to the apex court, Bar Council of India had stated, “the demand for a CBI inquiry appears to be justifiable”.

Meanwhile, the J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has dismissed the demand of CBI inquiry stating that "if you don't trust J&K Police, there is no one left to be trusted in the state."

According to The Indian Express, Mufti said, "Each time there is a crime, we can’t organise a referendum to choose the team of investigators,” while adding, “(t)hose who question the Crime Branch investigation have a vested interest and their aim is to protect the perpetrators of this heinous crime”.

“I am not only a Chief Minister who heads this administration. I am also a woman and a mother of two girls. I had expected that people across sectarian and political divides would come together. I had expected that everyone will be shocked by this abhorrent crime against our little child, they will be sad, they will come together to support the family of the victim, rally around the grieving mother whose 8-year-old child had been taken away from her in such a brutal manner,’’ she said.

The victim in the gruesome rape and murder case was a seven and a half years old Bakarwal girl, who was reported missing from Rasana village, Kathua on January 10. A week later, her body was recovered in the forest, barely one kilometer away from her home in the same village. Considering the sensitvity of the matter, the J&K government had transferred the case to Crime Branch for investigation.

As per the chargesheet filed by the Crime Branch, the victim was kept inside a devisthan, where she was allegedly drugged and raped repeatedly. However, lawyers from the Jammu Bar Association and a few locals of Rasana had objected to the findings of the chargesheet.

Talking to Newsclick, Nazeer Ahmed, a Bakarwal in Doda district of Jammu, said, "We are satisfied with the Crime Branch enquiry," while adding that the demand to transfer the case to CBI is a way to the suppress the matter.