Pathankot: A Special Court in Pathankot Monday convicted six people for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua last year. It pronounced a life imprisonment of 25 years to three — temple priest and mastermind Sanji Ram, Deepak Khajuria and Parvesh Kumar.
Investigating officers Raj and Dutta, and Special Police Officer Surinder Kumar were sentenced to five years in jail for destroying crucial evidence in the case. Sanji Ram’s son Vishal was acquitted due to lack of evidence, but the fate of his minor nephew, the eight accused in the case, will be decided by the juvenile court.
His trial is yet to begin as a petition to determine his age is awaiting judgment in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. Pathankot District and Sessions Judge Tejwinder Singh announced the verdict in an open court. The in-camera trial in the case ended June 3. All the six accused can move the High Court against the trial court verdict within one month.
Families of the convicted, who were present in the court in Pathankot, some 100 km from Jammu and 30 km from Kathua, accused the media for the verdict. “This is a bad judgment and we are going to challenge it in appropriate court,” said a defence counsel.
Elaborate security arrangements had been made at the trial court for the verdict because of the high-profile nature of the case. According to the charge sheet, the girl, who belonged to a Muslim nomadic tribe, was kidnapped and held captive at a village temple in Kathua district January 10, 2018. She was starved, sedated and repeatedly raped in captivity over the next four days before being bludgeoned to death.
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