Jammu, April 28, 2018 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, the police team investigating rape and murder of the eight-year-old Aasifa has said that Sanji Ram, one of the main culprits, has told them during interrogation that he learnt about the rape four days after her abduction and decided to have her killed because his son was also involved in the sexual assault.
The investigators said the girl, who was kidnapped on January 10, was first raped the same day by Sanji Ram’s nephew, a juvenile, and was killed on January 14. Her body was found on January 17 in a forest. Along with the juvenile, Sanji Ram and his son Vishal, five others have been charged in the case.
The investigators told Media that the girl, from the Muslim Bakarwal community, was kept in a ‘devisthan’, a small temple, where Sanji Ram was the custodian. The aim of the kidnapping was to scare and drive away the nomadic Gujjar and Bakarwal communities from the Hindu dominated area, they said.
Sanji said that he found out about the sexual assault only on January 13 when the nephew confessed to him, the investigators said. They claimed that the juvenile also confessed that he and his cousin, Vishal, both had raped the girl inside the ‘devisthan’. It was then that Sanji Ram decided that time was ripe to kill the girl so as to achieve the ultimate goal of scaring away the nomads, according to the charge sheet filed in the case.
On the intervening night of January 13 and 14, the juvenile, Vishal and a friend, Parvesh Kumar alias Mannu, took the victim out of the ‘devisthan’. They were later joined by a Special Police Officer, Deepak Khajuria, who wanted to rape her once more before she was killed, they said. She was murdered on January 14 as Sanji Ram did not want to leave any evidence that led to his son, investigators have found.
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