 "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:
We have failed Ashifa as humans. But she will not be denied justice.#PunishTheSavages #RapeAndMurderOfHumanity #Kathua #JusticeForAshifa #GenerallySaying pic.twitter.com/yQPUU0JDW4
— Vijay Kumar Singh (@Gen_VKSingh) 12 April 2018
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.
