Kathua rape case: We failed her as humans, tweets Union Minister VK Singh

Union minister V K Singh on Thursday said "we as humans" had failed the eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community who was gangraped and killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district but she would not be denied justice.

He tweeted the following: 

The child from from the nomadic Bakerwal Muslim community had disappeared from near her home in the forests next to Rasana village in Kathua on January 10. A week later, her body was found in the same area.

Expressing distress over the tragedy, perhaps this was the first reaction from a BJP minister.

"But she will not be denied justice," the minister of state in the External Affairs Ministry added in his tweet.

A Special Investigation Team formed to probe the incident has arrested eight people, including two Special Police Officers (SPOs) and a head constable, who was charged with destruction of evidence.

A chargesheet filed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police said abduction, rape and killing of the girl was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority community from the area.

The rape has polarised the state with the local bar association calling for a bandh against what it termed the "targeting of minority Dogras", while the Valley saw protests demanding justice for the deceased.