Six men were convicted Monday over the notorious 2018 gang rape and murder in India of an eight-year-old girl from a Muslim nomadic tribe that provoked horror and stoked inter-religious tensions.

Sexual violence, including against children, is rife in India and outrage over the so-called Kathua case contributed to the government introducing the death penalty for child rapists.

According to the charge sheet, the girl was abducted while she was out grazing horses and taken to a village in the Kathua district of the northern Indian region of Jammu on January 10 last year.

In an ordeal lasting five days, she was sedated and held in a Hindu temple, repeatedly raped and then strangled and bludgeoned to death.

Investigations suggested that the girl was targeted in order to strike fear in her nomad community and drive them out of the area.

The six Hindu men were due to be sentenced later, prosecution lawyer Mubeen Farooqui told reporters outside a special court in Pathankot, in Punjab state.

They face the death penalty with a minimum of life imprisonment. A seventh man was acquitted while an eighth person, who claims to be underage, faces a separate trial.

"We will appeal against the convictions in a higher court," defence lawyer H.S. Pathania said.

Among the three convicted for rape and murder were village head Sanjhi Ram and special police officer Deepak Khajuria. Three others were found guilty of taking bribes and destroying evidence, but still face life imprisonment under strict conspiracy laws.

India has the death penalty for the most brutal murders and terror attacks. The last execution happened in 2015 over bombings in Mumbai in 1993.

The Kathua case sparked two days of violent protests in Jammu and demonstrations in several other places across India, including in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

The ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party also drew flak after two of its members participated in rallies in support of the accused.

The protests were reminiscent of those that followed the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student on a bus in 2012 that made headlines around the world.

The Supreme Court had shifted the Kathua trial to Punjab after the girl's family and their lawyer complained of death threats.

Sexual violence, including against children, remains unabated in India. Nearly 20,000 child rape cases were reported in 2016, according to official data, while a 2014 UN report said one in three rape victims was a minor.

Jammu and Kashmir is India's only Muslim-majority state, but the southern Jammu region -- where the rape and murder took place -- is Hindu-dominated.

On Monday hundreds of police were on duty in Pathankot for the trial. Wary of new protests, security was also heavy in Kathua town and surrounding Muslim areas. </s> An Indian court has sentenced three men to life imprisonment for the brutal rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Indian Kashmir, in a case that sparked nationwide outrage.

The young Muslim girl was kidnapped last January while she was alone in a field grazing horses, tortured, drugged, and repeatedly raped inside a small Hindu temple for five days. She was then bludgeoned with a rock and her body dumped in a forest near Kathua district.

The three men convicted include a retired government official and a police officer.

Three other police officers were handed five-year sentences for destruction of evidence. One man was acquitted and a juvenile will be tried in a separate court.

The girl, who belonged to a Muslim nomadic tribe, was targeted as part of a plan to frighten the community into leaving the Hindu-dominated area, according to investigators.

In Jammu and Kashmir — the only Muslim majority state that simmers with tensions, the sexual assault exposed a religious divide when the arrest and trial of the Hindu men for the rape of a Muslim girl prompted protests by right-wing Hindu groups and lawyers. The protesters included two senior leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu and Kashmir they resigned after the case came under the national spotlight.

In cities across India, members of an outraged public took to the streets demanding justice for the young girl and the Supreme Court ordered that the trial should be held in a neighboring state.

Lawyers representing the victim's family said they would appeal in a higher court to seek the death penalty. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, said the case was based on "circumstantial evidence," and that they would appeal the conviction in a higher court.

"Justice will be done if the perpetrators are hanged," the eight year old's father told reporters before the sentences were pronounced.

The chairman of the National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma, also said the men should get the death penalty "to set an example for others because cases against minors are increasing."

The Kathua rape was one of the cases that prompted India to tighten laws for sexual assault. It introduced the death penalty for the rape of children under the age of 12. In April of last year, India increased minimum prison terms from 10- to 20 years for the rape of girls under age 16.

The stricter laws, however, appear to have done little to deter incidents of sexual violence.According to government figures, instances of child rape account for nearly half of the total cases that are reported. Nearly 19,000 such cases rape were registered in 2016, or more than 50 each day.

Some blame a slow-moving justice system. While the trial in the rape and murder of the 8-year-old girl was completed in 16 months in a fast track court, many sexual assault cases languish in the courts, usually dragging on for years. </s> PATHANKOT, India: Six men were convicted on Monday (Jun 10) over the gang rape and murder in India of a young girl from a Muslim nomadic tribe that provoked horror and stoked inter-religious tensions.

The six men from the Jammu region of northern India escaped the death sentence, however, with three defendants given life imprisonment and the others five years in jail.



Sexual violence, including against children, is rife in India and outrage over the so-called Kathua case contributed to the government imposing the death penalty for child rapists.

According to the charge sheet, the girl was abducted while she was out grazing horses and taken to a village in Jammu, the Hindu-dominated part of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, on Jan 10 2018.



In an ordeal lasting five days, she was sedated and held in a Hindu temple, raped repeatedly over five days and then strangled and bludgeoned to death.

Investigations suggested that the girl was targeted in order to strike fear in her nomad community and drive them out of the area.

On Monday a seventh man was acquitted while an eighth person, who claims to be underage, faces a separate trial.

Among the three convicted for rape and murder and sentenced to life were village head Sanjhi Ram and special police officer Deepak Khajuria. The others were found guilty of taking bribes and destroying evidence.

Prosecutors said that they would study the verdict before deciding whether to appeal. The family, who were not present at the trial, had hoped that all six would be given the death sentences, prosecutors said.​​​​​​​



India has the death penalty for the most brutal murders and terror attacks. The last execution happened in 2015 over bombings in Mumbai in 1993.

The Kathua case sparked two days of violent protests in Jammu and demonstrations in several other places across India, including in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party also drew flak after two of its members participated in rallies in support of the accused.

The protests were reminiscent of those that followed the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student on a bus in 2012 that made headlines around the world.

The Supreme Court had shifted the Kathua trial to Punjab after the girl's family and their lawyer complained of death threats.

Sexual violence, including against children, remains unabated in India. Nearly 20,000 child rape cases were reported in 2016, according to official data, while a 2014 UN report said one in three rape victims was a minor.



On Monday, hundreds of police were on duty in Pathankot for the trial. Wary of new protests, security was also heavy in Kathua town and surrounding Muslim areas. </s> Indian Court Convicts 6 Men In Rape And Murder Of 8-Year-Old Girl

Enlarge this image toggle caption Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images

The 8-year-old girl was grazing horses in the foothills of the Himalayas when she was lured by kidnappers. Over the next several days, investigators say, she was drugged, starved and gang-raped before being bludgeoned to death with a stone. Her small body was found in a forest.

On Monday, an Indian court convicted six men in her 2018 rape and murder. Three of the men, including a 61-year-old temple priest named Sanji Ram who is believed to be the main conspirator, were sentenced to life, while the other three were found guilty of destroying evidence and given five-year prison terms.

Four former police officers were among those convicted, including the three given shorter sentences.

A seventh suspect was acquitted, while an eighth defendant, who is a minor, will be tried in juvenile court. All eight of the accused had pleaded not guilty.

The case fueled religious tensions in India and sparked nationwide protests — including many in support of the accused. They are all Hindus. The victim was a Muslim girl from a minority nomadic community in the Kathua district of India's northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. Some politicians of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came out in support of the defendants. When police officers went to file a charge sheet accusing the Hindus, some Hindu lawyers tried to physically block them.

The crime against the girl was apparently a plot to drive away her tribe, which has been involved in a spat over land with the Hindu-majority community in Kathua. She was held captive in a local Hindu temple, where she was hidden under a cot in a sedated state.

"Our family has gone through hell. Our hearts are bleeding," the girl's father, Mohammed Akhtar, told The Associated Press after the court's decision was announced.

"Verdict is tribute to her," the victim's lawyer, Deepika Singh Rajawat, tweeted. Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, welcomed the judgment. "High time we stop playing politics over a heinous crime," she wrote on Twitter.

Some criticized the sentences as not harsh enough. "Why is it that they were not given the death penalty when that is the law of the land?" Swati Maliwal, chairperson for the Delhi Commission for Women, told local media. She urged the Jammu and Kashmir state government to appeal the sentences to a higher court.

The Kathua killing was one of the cases that prompted stricter laws against child rape in India. Last year, Indian lawmakers made a provision for giving the death penalty as punishment in cases of aggravated sexual assault against minors. However, whether those guilty are sentenced to death is left to the discretion of the judge in each case.

Much like the high-profile 2012 gang rape of a paramedical student on a bus in New Delhi, the Kathua case galvanized and horrified India, which has long grappled with the problem of sexual violence against women and girls. Last year, a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked India as the most dangerous country for women.

Days before the Kathua verdict, an 8-year-old girl was raped and killed in the city of Bhopal, her body dumped in a drain. Another young girl was raped and strangled to death in Meerut in northern India.

Sushmita Pathak is NPR's producer in Mumbai. </s> Indian Punjab Police personnel escort a police vehicle carrying the seven accused on June 10, 2019. Six of them were convicted while one was found not guilty.

PATHANKOT, India - An Indian court on Monday (June 10) convicted six men of involvement in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in India's Jammu and Kashmir state last year, said a prosecution lawyer.

The case sparked outrage and criticism of the country's ruling party after some of its members opposed charges being laid.

The girl, from a nomadic Muslim community that roams the forests of Kashmir, was drugged, held captive in a temple and sexually assaulted for a week before being strangled and battered to death with a stone in January 2018.

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

Among those accused were a Hindu priest and police officers, fanning communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims in the area.

"This is a victory of truth," prosecution lawyer M. Farooqi told reporters outside the court. "The girl and her family has got justice today. We are satisfied with the judgment."

The prosecution was seeking the death penalty for three men - priest Sanji Ram, Deepak Khajuria and Parvesh Kumar - who were convicted of rape and murder, he said.

The three others, Surinder Kumar, Tilak Raj and Anand Dutta, were convicted of lesser crimes of destroying evidence. A lawyer leading the legal team representing the accused, Mr AK Sawhney, told reporters they planned to appeal the verdict. The case shocked India, which has an appalling record for violence against women and girls, and led to the introduction of the death penalty for rapists of girls below the age of 12. The trial, held in private, began over a year ago in Pathankot, a town about 70km from Rasana village in Kathua district, where the incident happened, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. India's Supreme Court shifted the trial to the neighbouring state of Punjab after the girl's family and lawyer said they faced death threats, and local lawyers and Hindu politicians, including some from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, held protests against police filing charges in court. India has long been plagued by violence against women and children. Reported rapes climbed 60 per cent to 40,000 from 2012 to 2016, according to government statistics, and many more go unreported, especially in rural areas. In total, there are eight people accused of involvement in the case. The seventh man, named as Vishal, was found not guilty on Monday, Mr Farooqi said, while the eighth, a juvenile, is currently awaiting trial. </s> A court has sentenced three Hindu men, including a police officer, to life imprisonment for kidnapping, raping and murdering an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in a case that has exacerbated tensions in the disputed region.

A court has sentenced three Hindu men, including a police officer, to life imprisonment for kidnapping, raping and murdering an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in a case that has exacerbated tensions in the disputed region.

Life terms for three over rape and murder in Kashmir of Muslim girl, eight

Judge Tejwinder Singh sentenced three other policemen to five years in prison for destroying evidence, prosecutor Santokh Singh told reporters.

The judge acquitted another defendant due to insufficient evidence.

An eighth suspect, a minor, will be tried separately by a juvenile court, Santokh Singh said.

The girl, who was a member of a nomadic tribe, was grazing her family’s ponies in the forests of the Himalayan foothills when she was kidnapped in January 2018.

Her mutilated body was found in the woods a week later.

The case sparked protests across Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region where rebels have been fighting for years for independence or unification with Pakistan and there is great distrust of the government.

Prosecutors plan to appeal to a higher court and seek the death penalty for the three defendants who received life sentences.

Thousands of members of a radical Hindu group had demanded the release of the defendants, insisting they were innocent.

The trial was shifted to Pathankot, a town in neighbouring Punjab state, following accusations that local Hindu leaders and politicians were trying to block the investigation.

The prosecution said the girl was raped in a small village temple in Kathua district after having been kept sedated for four days, and was then bludgeoned to death.

The girl’s father, Mohammed Akhtar, said by phone that the men should be “punished speedily, not just convicted”.

“Our family has gone through hell,” he said.

“Our hearts are bleeding. These beasts should be hanged.”

India has been shaken by a series of sexual assaults in recent years, including the gang rape and murder of a student on a New Delhi bus in 2012.

That attack galvanised a country where widespread violence against women had long been quietly accepted.

While the government has passed a series of laws increasing punishment for rape, it’s rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported. </s> A court in India on Monday found six people guilty in a case related to rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from a Muslim nomadic tribe in northern state of Jammu and Kashmir that sparked countrywide outrage and provoked communal tensions last year.

Three of the convicts were sentenced to life in prison while three others convicted in the case were given five years in jail. </s> New Delhi - Three men have been jailed for life for the rape, torture and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-administered Kashmir. Three police officers were found guilty of destroying evidence and sentenced to five years in prison. The victim, who belonged to a Muslim nomadic tribe, was found in a forest near Kathua city in January 2018.

The eight-year-old girl went missing in the new year of 2018 and her battered body was discovered almost three weeks later.

According to investigators, the child was confined to a local temple for several days and given sedatives that kept her unconscious. The charge sheet alleged that she was “raped for days, tortured and then finally murdered”.

They added that the child was targeted because the men wished to terrorise the tribe - known as Gujjars - into leaving.

Why did India wake up so late to a child rape and murder?

A child is sexually abused every 15 minutes in India, according to government crime figures up to 2016, and there has been a steady rise in offences against children.

The BBC’s Geeta Pandey in Delhi says India is home to the largest number of sexually abused children in the world, but there is a reluctance to talk about the topic so the real number of cases could be much higher. Who are the convicted men?

Seven men were tried in a specially convened fast-track court on Monday and six were found guilty. Investigators said that Sanjhi Ram, a 60-year-old retired government officer, allegedly planned the crime with the help of police officers Surinder Verma, Anand Dutta, Tilak Raj and Deepak Khajuria. Ram’s son, Vishal, his nephew, a juvenile, and his friend, Parvesh Kumar, were also accused over the rape and murder.

While Vishal was acquitted, Ram, Khajuria and Kumar have been sentenced for life. The remaining three have been handed five-year sentences.

After the verdict, the lawyer representing the child’s family told BBC Punjabi that it was a “victory of constitutional spirit”. He added that “the whole country fought this case, irrespective of religious affiliations”.

The lawyer representing the accused said that despite the conviction, the case was based on “circumstantial evidence” and has pleaded for minimum punishment for the six men. He added that there were mitigating circumstances, including the fact that the men were the sole breadwinners in their families.

When I met the girl’s mother, she was on a hilltop alongside her elder daughter and several other members of the family.

They were surrounded by their sheep and goats, which were grazing, and they did not know that this verdict had come out. When I informed the girl’s mother that six of the accused had been convicted, she began to cry and blessed me for being the bearer of good news.

She said the family could not afford to travel to Pathankot to hear the verdict because selling livestock was their only source of income. “I have always believed in justice and God gave me strength to fight for it,” she said.

She added that if the two main accused were not sentenced to death, she and her husband would challenge the sentence. “We will not eat or drink but we will get justice for our daughter,” she said. The girl’s elder sister, who is 15, says she and other girls her age now live in “constant fear of Hindu men” and never leave the house unless they are accompanied by an older family member.

What was the response to the case?

Although promptly reported in Indian-administered Kashmir, it only made headlines in the rest of the country in April after Hindu groups marched in support of the accused.

But as details of the injuries inflicted on the child became public, horrified Indians protested across the country.

Outrage grew after two ministers from India’s governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused men, whose community was involved in a land dispute with the nomadic tribe the girl belonged to.

The child’s mother has demanded capital punishment for two of those convicted - retired government officer Sanji Ram and police officer Deepak Khajuria - claiming that they were the “masterminds” behind the crime.

“My daughter’s face still haunts me and that pain will never leave me. When I see other children of her age playing around me, it breaks my heart,” she told the BBC.

Despite the outrage, the victim’s parents said they felt threatened in Kathua, where the community is predominantly Hindu.

The sentiment around the case prompted the top court to move the trial out of Jammu and Kashmir to a court in Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab and start the trial afresh. </s> Six men found guilty over rape and murder of girl, 8, in Indian-controlled Kashmir

Six men found guilty over rape and murder of girl, 8, in Indian-controlled Kashmir

A bus carries the six men convicted over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl

Six men, including four police officials, have been found guilty over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The group, who are all Hindu, were involved in an attack on the child from a community of nomadic herders.

Judge Tejwinder Singh found at least some of the six guilty of rape and murder in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, but it was not immediately known if all of them were.

One person was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

At least some of the men are expected to be handed the death penalty during sentencing later.

The men were also found guilty of destroying evidence in the case, which caused outrage in the country and exacerbated tensions in disputed Kashmir.

The Muslim-majority region is where rebels have been fighting for years for independence or unification with Pakistan and there is great distrust of the government.

Conflict has been brewing in recent years between Muslim nomads and local Hindus over land disputes.

The girl was with her family's ponies in the forests of the Himalayan foothills when she was kidnapped in January last year.

She was later drugged and sexually assaulted as she was held captive in a small village temple in Kathua for a week.

The girl was then strangled and battered to death with a stone.

Her raped and mutilated body was found in the woods a week later.

Police say the attack had been planned to terrify the Bakarwals community, which roams the forests of Kashmir, into leaving the area.

Mohammed Akhtar, the girl's father has said the men should be "punished speedily, not just convicted".

"Our family has gone through hell.

He added: "Our hearts are bleeding. These beasts should be hanged."

The trial was shifted to neighbouring Punjab state following accusations that local Hindu leaders and politicians were trying to block the investigation into the case.

India has been shaken by a series of sexual assaults in recent years, including the gang rape and murder of a student on a New Delhi bus in 2012.
An Indian court convicts six men in the 2018 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl near Kathua in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Three of the men are given life sentences while the other three, found guilty of destroying evidence, receive five-year prison terms.