Kathua rape-and-murder verdict likely on Monday

Tribune News Service
Gurdaspur, June 9

Verdict in the rape and murder of an 8-year-old nomadic girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua is likely to be delivered on Monday, nearly a year after the trial began in a court in Pathankot.

District and sessions judge Tejwinder Singh announced recently that he is likely to deliver the judgement on June 10.

Defence lawyers completed their final arguments on Monday, followed by a brief concluding statement from the prosecution team, officials said.

The day-to-day in-camera trial began in the first week of June last year at the district and sessions court in Pathankot after the Supreme Court directed that the case be shifted out of Jammu and Kashmir.

The apex court move came after lawyers in Kathua prevented Crime Branch officials from filing a charge sheet in the case, which shocked the nation with the details of the brutality.

According to the charge sheet, the child was kidnapped on January 10 last year and was allegedly raped in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua district after having been kept sedated for four days before she was bludgeoned to death.

The abduction, rape and killing of the child was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority nomadic community from the area, the 15-page charge sheet said.

Charges of rape and murder were framed by the district and sessions judge against seven out of the eight accused. The trial against the juvenile is yet to begin as his petition on his age is to be heard by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.  With agencies