Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development has said that the ministry intends to amend the POCSO Act so that death penalty can given to rapes on children below 12 years.
“I am deeply disturbed by the rape case in Kathua and all the recent rape cases that have happened on children. I and the ministry intend to bring an amendment to the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act asking for the death penalty for rape on children below 12 years”. The minister said this in a television interview on Friday.
Apart from a few Union ministers who have spoken up on the Kathua rape case, most BJP leaders have remained tight-lipped on the gruesome rape incident. On Thursday, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh had tweeted about the case advocating a punishment so severe “that we can make an example of them for generations”.
Lawyers in Kathua recently tried to prevent the Crime Branch to file the chargesheet in the rape and murder case of the an eight year old girl. However the police, after calling reinforcements filed the chargesheet.
The Jammu and Kashmir police registered a case against the lawyers for obstructing Crime Branch from filing charge sheet in Kathua rape and murder case at the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Kathua.
Mehbooba Mufti, after the protest and the strike call given the Jammu Bar Association said that law won’t be obstructed due to the actions or statements of a group of people.
Nine accused, including the alleged mastermind Sanji Ram – an ex-bureaucrat – and his son vishal Kumar, a police head constable, two SPOs and a sub-inspector of police, have been arrested in the case.
Recently, the DNA report suggested that the eight year old Kathua girl was being held captive in a temple.
Nine accused, including the alleged mastermind Sanji Ram – an ex-bureaucrat – and his son vishal Kumar, a police head constable, two SPOs and a sub-inspector of police, have been arrested in the case.
Ram surrendered before the police on March 20. His surrender came after the arrest of his son Vishal – a BSc Agriculture student -from Meerut area of Uttar Pradesh.
Ram, said to be linked with the Hindu Ekta Manch, allegedly motivated special police officer Deepak Khajuria to kidnap, rape and murder the eight-year-old victim with the intention of driving out nomadic families of Muslim origin from Jammu’s Rasana village.
Earlier, it came to fore that how the police had initially botched up the probe by destroying crucial evidence.
On January 17, body of minor girl was found in the forests near Rasana, Hiranagar. The girl had been missing for a week. According to police, she had been abducted and raped by an SPO Deepak Khajuria, who was a part of the team sent out find her when she was missing.
The investigation of the Crime Branch further revealed that she had been drugged so that she couldn’t cry for help.
