Hearing in Kathua rape and murder case to begin today

Hearing in Kathua rape and murder case to take place at the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate on Monday. The accused allegedly held an eight-year-old girl in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua district for a week in January this year during which she was kept sedated and sexually assaulted before being bludgeoned to death.

The gruesome crime has evoked strong reactions across the country. The activists and the opposition parties forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his silence over the incident which allegedly involved eight people including two Special Police Officers (SPOs) and a head constable, who was charged with destruction of evidence. Speaking at the inauguration of the Ambedkar Memorial in New Delhi, the prime minister said that the "guilty" will not be spared. He asserted that "daughters will get justice", and the government will ensure that happens. The accused include a juvenile against whom a separate charge sheet was filed.

The chief judicial magistrate of Kathua will be committing one of the charge sheets, in which seven people have been named, to the sessions court for trial as mandated under the juvenile act. Aseem Sahni, Counsel for accused constable Tilak Raj, said, "Full chargesheet copy has not been provided to us, we are depending on information from social media.We are handicapped." The body of the girl, from the Bakherwal community, was recovered from Rasana forest on January 17, a week after she went missing while grazing horses in the forest area. On January 23, the government had handed over the case to the crime branch of the state police which formed a Special Investigation Team and arrested all the accused.