INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathua Rape Case: Asifa was raped and murdered in January this year
and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, which has jolted India
"We have failed Asifa as humans
But she will not be denied justice," the junior foreign minister tweeted.He is the first minister in the BJP-led central government to talk
about justice for little Asifa
His colleague Jitendra Singh, who represents a part of Kathua in parliament, had last month appeared to back the accused when he said,
"those who have not done anything wrong should be given justice", and backed the demand of local BJP leaders for a CBI inquiry.Soon after,
Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted, calling it a "crime against humanity.""How can anyone protect the culprits of such evil What
happened to Asifa at Kathua is a crime against humanity
What have we become if we allow politics to interfere with such unimaginable brutality perpetrated on an innocent child" Rahul Gandhi
gang-raped repeatedly for days by a group that included police officers before being killed
She was drugged and not given food the entire time
Just before her head was bashed in with a rock, one of the police officers asked the killer to wait so he could rape the child one more
time, according to the charge-sheet
One of the rapists is a student who travelled all the way from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh after being invited to "satisfy his lust".The child's
mutilated body was found in the forests on January 17
As her community and locals protested, two policemen tried to help the accused by manipulating the evidence
Her family and relatives were not allowed to bury her body in what they believed was their land, by the Hindu families who dominate the
region.Protests against the murder have deeply polarized the region and have become another point of conflict between ruling coalition
partners Mehbooba Mufti and BJP
organised in support of the accused
Ministers Chaudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga attended the event organised by Hindu Ekta Manch, an outfit that has been protesting
police charge-sheet revealing the sheer depravity of the crime and the horror of the girl's final days, #JusticeforAsifa and
#RapeAndMurderOfHumanity became trending hashtags, widely posted by celebrities and other prominent voices.Eight people have been arrested
The main accused is a retired revenue department official who planned the crime to instill fear among the Bakherwal nomads - Asifa was one
of them - and drive them out of the Rassana area where they were living
