Mehbooba Mufti assures justice in Kathua rape, says will bring law to award death penalty for rape of minors

A minor disappeared close to her home in the forests next to Rasana village in Jammu’s Kathua district on January 10. Her body was found a week later, with the police saying she had been repeatedly raped.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday said she will seek “exemplary punishment” for the gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua district and bring in death penalty for such crimes.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has assured her government will not allow the law to be obstructed and justice will be delivered in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua district. (PTI File Photo)

“We will never ever let another child suffer in this way,” she said on Twitter.

The girl, who belonged to the nomadic Muslim Bakarwal community, was abducted on January 10 in while grazing horses near her home. She was held captive in a temple, sedated and raped repeatedly, the police has charged.

Read | Held captive, raped repeatedly: Chargesheet describes atrocities on Kathua girl

Thousands of members of a radical Hindu group have marched to demand the release of the six men accused in the repeated rape and killing of the girl inside a Hindu temple. Hundreds of Hindu lawyers have protested that the men, two of them police officers, are innocent.