BJP ministers who took part in rally in support of Kathua rape case accused submit resignation

Amid strain in the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir over the rape and killing of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, two ministers of the saffron party, who courted controversy by attending a rally supporting the accused in the case, today tendered their resignation to the state BJP chief.

In the national capital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured the nation that no criminal will be spared and daughters will get justice, in an apparent reference to the two rape cases of Kathua and Unnao.

Following criticism by the Opposition over his silence on the rape cases, Modi, at an event in New Delhi, said such incidents "shake our sensibilities".

In Jammu and Kashmir, the alliance between Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP had come under strain after many leaders of the Mehbooba Mufti-led party pressed for dropping Industries and Commerce Minister Chander Prakash Ganga and Forest Minister Lal Singh from the Cabinet.

The two BJP ministers, who were at the centre of a storm over their participation in a rally in support of the accused in the Kathua rape and murder case, today submitted their resignations to the party's state president Sat Sharma.

Sharma told PTI that a legislature party meeting of the BJP that is scheduled to be held tomorrow in Jammu would take a call on their resignations.

The developments came after Mehbooba Mufti spoke with Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP chief Amit Shah and party general secretary Ram Madhav, PDP sources said.

The chief minister apprised them of the situation and requested them for their intervention to defuse the political crisis brewing in the state over the Kathua rape case, they said.

Ganga and Singh had earlier hit out at the police for arresting "one or the other person at will" in connection with the case.

Opposition parties National Conference and the Congress had demanded that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti should sack the two ministers.

The PDP would also hold a meeting of its MLAs and MPs tomorrow to decide the party's course of action amid demands to remove the two ministers from the government.

The party today came out with a strong statement blaming the Centre and "hawkish and communal" elements in the BJP for failing the purpose of the alliance between the two parties in the state.

The statement signed by its senior leader Nizamuddin Bhat, a close aide of the chief minister, said, "The conduct of communal and hawkish elements in BJP is giving serious blow to PDP's expectations on Kashmir and New Delhi's own attitudes are failing the purpose of alliance between the two parties."
Bhat endorsed the sentiments of Tourism Minister Tasaduq Mufti, who had said that the PDP had become a "partner in crime with the BJP and the gradual schism of state's residents may lead to unprecedented bloodshed."