INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
8-year-old girl who, while grazing her horses in a meadow in Northern India in January, followed a man into the forest
Days later, Asifa Bano's small, lifeless body was recovered there.Police say that Asifa was given sedatives and, for three days, raped
several times by different men
Asifa was eventually strangled on Jan
17, something police say would have happened sooner had one man not insisted on waiting, so that he could rape her a final time.To ensure
she was dead, Asifa's killers hit her twice on the head with a stone, according to charging documents filed by police in the state of Jammu
and Kashmir and published by the Indian news website Firstpost.In the months since, Asifa's death has brought anguish to Kathua, the small
town where she was killed
But it's also brought division
Asifa's case is the latest example of India's religious friction: As some denounce sexual violence and demand justice for Asifa's family,
others demand justice for the men accused.The eight men accused of raping and killing Asifa are Hindu
Asifa was a Muslim nomad, part of the Bakarwal tribe
Asifa's father, Mohammad Yusuf Pujwala, told the New York Times that he believes his daughter was killed by the Hindu men for the sole
purpose of driving her people away
To add to the volatility of Asifa's case, police say she was killed in a Hindu temple, and that the temple's custodian plotted her death as
"A child of only 8 years of age who became a soft target," police said.On Monday, a chaotic scene unfolded outside a courthouse in Jammu
and Kashmir, as a mob of Hindu attorneys tried to physically stop police from filing charges against the men accused
The attorneys in a statement argued for a federal investigation, stating that the government had failed to "understand the sentiments of the
people.Police still managed to complete the paperwork and charged the men, who include four policemen and a retired government
official.Protests have now spread across much of Kathua
Hindu activists argue that some of the police officers who worked on the case are, like Asifa, Muslims - and cannot be trusted, according to
Dozens of Hindu women have helped block a highway and organize a hunger strike."They are against our religion," Bimla Devi, a protester,
She said that if the accused men weren't freed, "we will burn ourselves."The lawyers, along with a group affiliated with India's ruling
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, fight on the basis of religious prejudice, even though BJP supporters are vocal opponents of
After the brutal gang rape and murder of a medical student in New Delhi in 2012, the government promised to introduce legal reforms and
support services to help victims of sexual violence
To an extent, it did - for example, the government amended the law to prosecute children older than 16 as adults in rape and murder
asked the case be moved out of the state police's jurisdiction and into that of the Central Bureau of Investigation, claiming the agency
The bureau, however, reports to the BJP-led government in New Delhi.Asifa's case has shaken the state's Legislative Assembly
Weeks after her body was found, lawmakers still questioned the police's behavior in the days after Asifa disappeared: Police waited two days
to file a report after Asifa disappeared, for example, and did not alert newspapers until days after she was killed, according to the Asia
Times."The screams and cries of the girl were heard by neighbors
Why was there such a delay by police [to help her]" lawmaker Shamima Firdous said a few weeks after Asifa's body was found, according to the
Asia Times.Talib Hussain, a Bakarwal social activist fighting on behalf of Asifa's family, told the New York Times that Bakarwal nomads for
generations have leased land from Hindu farmers so that their animals can graze during the winter
In recent years, however, Hindus in the Kathua area have campaigned against the nomads
Believed to be at the campaign's helm is the accused custodian, Sanji Ram."His poison has been spreading,'' Hussain told the Times
"When I was young, I remember the fear Sanji Ram's name invoked in Muslim women
If they wanted to scare each other, they would take Sanji Ram's name, since he was known to misbehave with Bakarwal women.''Hussain could
not be immediately reached for comment by The Post.Feelings of suspicion and animosity between the two communities run so deep that when
Asifa didn't return from the meadow, her parents instantly feared she'd encountered danger
And when the Bakarwal nomads retrieved Asifa's body for her burial, "some baton-wielding goons appeared at the graveyard asking us not to
bury her there," Hussain told the Asia Times.The "goons," he said, feared that if Asifa was buried on their land, it would forever belong to
Muslims.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
