Jammu: More chilling details of the horrific Kathua incident in which a minor girl belonging to the nomadic community of Jammu and Kashmir was kidnapped, drugged, tortured, raped and eventually killed, have now come to fore.
Sanji Ram, the alleged mastermind of rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, had two motives for committing the crime.
First, he wanted to save his son Vishal, who was one of those who had kidnapped and gang-raped the minor girl, and second, he wanted to scare away the nomads from his village.
During his grilling by the Crime Branch officials, Sanji Ram had reportedly told them that after knowing that his son had also raped the abducted minor girl, he thought the only way to protect his son was to kill the girl.
By doing this, he also wanted to give a strong message to the members of the nomadic tribes staying in his village.
Sanji Ram also told the investigators that he came to know about the crime and that the victim was being raped by some, including his son, four days later, according to the Crime Branch sources quoted by IANS.
"After he came to know that his son Vishal was among those who had raped the victim, Sanji Ram decided that the victim could not be left alive," a source was quoted as saying.
Besides Vishaal, Sanji Ram's nephew was also involved in the crime.
Sanji Ram's nephew – a juvenile - had actually raped the victim on January 10 - the same day she was abducted.
Sanji Ram's nephew told him that his son Vishal too had raped the victim and this revelation was enough for him to achieve his twin motive of scaring the nomad community out of the village and killing the girl to save Vishal from being implicated in the crime.
Sanji Ram told the investigators that he had asked one of his friends to bring a car so that the body of the minor could be disposed of.
After his friend refused to bring the car, Sanji Ram told his son and other accused to dump the body away from the 'Devasthan' where the victim was held hostage, repeatedly raped and finally murdered, the sources said.
The body of the girl was discovered on January 17 – nearly a week after she went missing - in a forest area in Kathua.
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch had also charged two policemen - a sub-inspector and a head constable - as co-accused in the crime. The policemen had allegedly been paid Rs 4 lakh by Sanji Ram to destroy crucial evidence in the horrendous crime.
During his interrogation, Sanji Ram revealed that the drug which was used to sedate the minor victim was a cannabis extract.
During the course of its investigation, the J&K Police's Crime Branch, citing medical experts, had confirmed that the minor victim in the Kathua incident was actually sedated, sexually assaulted and subsequently murdered.
The Kathua rape-and-murder case had triggered a national outrage and protests from across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also condemned the Kathua incident in the strongest terms during an event in London last week and urged the countrymen to respect women and girls.
(With IANS inputs)
