Candlelight marches, protests carried out in Jammu

Scores of people today staged candlelight marches and demonstrations here to protest the alleged rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl who belonged to the Bakerwal community.

The students of Jammu University carried ply-cards and raised slogans demanding justice to the minor.

Demonstrations were staged after Friday prayers in the Sheehdi Chowk area. The protests were joined by the Gujjar community who took to the streets to demand death penalty for the accused. Gujjar and Bakerwal leader Choudhary Nazakat Khatana was also present at the protest site.

The protestors also raised slogans against the Bar Association of Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

The bar association here had yesterday claimed that the Crime Branch probe was done on "questionable lines" amid threats and coercion by a team of officers from Kashmir, and demanded the case be handed over to the CBI.

"We demand justice for the girl. We demand death penalty to the accused involved in the case," Khatana told reporters here.

The Jammu city has been tense since the incident. The police have arrested eight people in the case, but the Bar Association has opposed the action alleging "targeting of minority Dogras".