Janjivan Bureau / Pathankot : The special court in Pathankot on Monday convicted six out of seven people accused in the Kathua rape and murder case one year after the incident occurred.
Temple priest and village head Sanji Ram, the main accused in the case, was convicted with 5 others including two special police officers and a police constable.
The others who were convicted include Sanji Ram’s juvenile nephew and two special police officers Deepak Khajuria and Surender Verma.
Sanji Ram, the caretaker of the temple where the crime took place, Special Police Officer Deepak Khajuria and Parvesh Kumar, a civilian, have been convicted under Ranbir Penal Code sections pertaining to criminal conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, gangrape, destruction of evidence, drugging the victim and common intention. the lawyers said.
They have been sentenced to life imprisonment and fined Rs 1 lakh each for murder along with 25 years in jail for gangrape, they said.
Three accomplices — Sub Inspector Anand Dutta, Head Constable Tilak Raj and special police officer Surender Verma — who were convicted for destruction of evidence have been handed over five years imprisonment, they said.
All the accused were arrested for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua region.
he girl, kidnapped as part of a strategy to drive out the minority nomadic community from the area in January 2018, had been overdosed with a cocktail of sedatives through her captivity and raped repeatedly. Four days later, she was strangled and then bludgeoned with a stone to make sure she was dead.
Three of the six have been convicted for gang-rape and murder. The other three include two policemen tasked to carry out the initial murder investigation but went about trying to destroy evidence. The seventh accused has been let off.
“The court has convicted six persons. Son of one of the accused Sanji Ram, Vishal has been acquitted,” Farooqi Khan, lawyer of victim’s family said after the sentencing.
The Supreme Court had on May 7, 2018, transferred the case from Kathua to Pathankot in Punjab. The in-camera trial in the case that shook the nation ended on June 3.
According to the 15-page charge sheet, the eight-year-old girl, who was kidnapped on January 10 last year, 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 day-to-day trial commenced in the first week of June last year at the district and sessions court in Pathankot in Punjab, about 100 km from Jammu and 30 km from Kathua, after the Supreme Court ordered that the case be shifted out of Jammu and Kashmir.
Those convicted are Sanji Ram, the village head, his juvenile nephew Anand Datta and two special police officers Deepak Khajuria and Surender Verma. Also convicted are Head Constable Tilak Raj and sub-inspector Anand Datta, who allegedly took Rs 4 lakh from Sanji Ram and destroyed crucial evidence.
The girl’s body was found on January 17 and autopsy confirmed gang rape and murder.
The court had framed charges under the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC), including Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder) and 376-D (gang-rape), according to the prosecution.
The accused face minimum life imprisonment and maximum death penalty. The court also framed charges of destruction of evidence and causing hurt by poisoning under Section 328 of the RPC. The two policemen – Raj and Datta – were also charged under Section 161 (public servant taking illegal gratification) of the RPC.
The case had become a bone of contention between the then ruling alliance partners PDP and the BJP after two ministers of the saffron party, Chowdhury Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, participated in a rally organised by the Hindu Ekta Manch in support of the accused arrested by the state crime branch.
