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Police officer investigating Kathua has comeback for sexist remark
Shwetambari Sharma, deputy superintendent of police, is the only woman in the six-member Jammu and Kashmir Special Investigation Team probing the death of an 8-year-old girl who was abducted and raped in Kathua.
A police officer investigating the Kathua gangrape and murder has responded to a sexist remark against her. Ignore, she says.
Shwetambari Sharma, deputy superintendent of police, is the only woman in the six-member Jammu and Kashmir Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the death of an 8-year-old girl who was abducted, held captive in a temple and assaulted for a week before being strangled in January in Kathua district of Jammu region. She belonged to the Muslim Bakarwal tribe and the six men on trial for her death are Hindus.
Ankur Sharma, a lawyer defending the accused, made a sexist remark against Sharma when trial started last week in Kathua. “She is a girl, how intelligent can she be?” he said, according to NDTV.
Sharma on Thursday said she didn’t wish to comment. “It hurts when you are targeted and your intelligence is doubted just because you are a woman. What should I comment on such a chauvinist remark, the whole nation is there to comment on it,” ANI quoted her as saying in Jammu on Wednesday.
Sharma spoke about the “difficulties” the SIT faced in its work. “Agitation was going on and going among the provocative persons to collect the evidence and take statements was not easy,” she said, referring to protests by a radical Hindu organisation and a group of lawyer in support of the accused in the Kathua case.
Sharma was confident that the murdered girl in Kathua will get justice.
“Our judiciary is capable enough to bring justice, don’t doubt it,” she said.
