Kathua charge sheet: 8-year-old raped again, stoned to death

The eight-year-old girl purportedly raped by six men, who had held her in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua district for a week in January, was kept sedated and sexually assaulted more than once before she was bludgeoned to death, reveals the charge sheet in the case.

The abduction, rape and killing of the Bakherwal girl was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority nomadic community from the area, reveals the 15-page charge sheet filed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police's Crime Branch in the chief judicial magistrate's court here on Monday.

It lists the caretaker of the Devisthan, a small temple, in Rassana village in Kathua, about 90 km from here, as the main conspirator behind the abduction, rape and killing.

Sanji Ram was purportedly joined by special police officers Deepak Khajuria and Surender Verma, friend Parvesh Kumar alias Mannu, Ram's nephew, a juvenile, and his son Vishal Jangotra alias "Shamma".

The charge sheet also names investigating officers head constable Tilak Raj and sub-inspector Anand Dutta, who purportedly took Rs 4 lakh from Ram and destroyed crucial evidence.

A separate charge sheet was filed on Tuesday on the role of the juvenile, who cannot be publicly named as per the law.

All eight are under arrest. Lawyers in Jammu on Wednesday struck work in support of the accused.

On January 11, six days before the child's body was recovered from the Rassana forest on January 17, the juvenile phoned his cousin Jangotra and asked him to return from Meerut where he was studying if he wanted to "satisfy his lust", the charge sheet stated.