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Eight Hindu men accused in the gang rape and killing of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in India's Jammu and Kashmir state have pleaded not guilty in their first court appearance.
Key points:
- Police said the girl's kidnapping was planned for more than a month
- The case has been adjourned until April 28 while the lawyer for the victim's family petitions for it to be heard elsewhere over fears for her safety
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticised for his weak response
Monday's court appearance came as angry protests over the case spread across the country, with outrage fuelled by support for the accused initially shown by state government ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.
The child's battered body was found in a forest in January, a week after she went missing while grazing her family's ponies.
Police say the accused men, all Hindus, planned the child's kidnapping for more than a month as part of a plan to scare her Muslim nomadic tribe away from the area.
Police said the child was sedated and held captive at a Hindu temple where she was repeatedly raped before being strangled and bludgeoned to death.
Protests initially erupted over the case earlier this month, after a former government official and a police officer who was investigating her parents' complaint about their missing daughter were named in the police charge sheet.
Others are accused of trying to cover up the crime, and four police officers have been arrested so far, said Deepika Singh Rawat, a lawyer representing the victim's family.
After Monday's initial hearing in Srinagar, the judge adjourned the case until April 28 while the Supreme Court heard a petition from Deepika Singh Rawat to have the trial held elsewhere due to fears for her safety.
Ahead of the trial, the lawyer said she had been threatened with rape and death for taking up the case.
Narendra Modi criticised for weak response
As the groundswell of revulsion grew, Mr Modi assured the country that the guilty would not be shielded — but he has been criticised for failing to speak out sooner.
Before leaving for an official visit to Europe this week, Mr Modi received a letter from 50 former police chiefs, ambassadors and senior civil servants criticising the political leadership over its weak response.
"The bestiality and the barbarity involved in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old child shows the depths of depravity that we have sunk into," the former officials said.
"In post-Independence India, this is our darkest hour and we find the response of our Government, the leaders of our political parties inadequate and feeble."
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi held a candlelit vigil at India Gate in New Delhi, the same site where thousands of people demonstrated in 2012 against a brutal gang rape in the capital.
"Like millions of Indians, my heart hurts tonight," Mr Gandhi wrote on Twitter after addressing an estimated 5,000 people at Thursday's midnight vigil.
"India simply cannot continue to treat its women the way it does."
Mr Gandhi urged Mr Modi to fast-track prosecutions "if he is serious about providing 'justice for our daughters'".
Sexual violence remains a taboo in India, and survivors fear stigma or retribution if they report attacks.
But the number of cases that police register has been steadily rising following national outrage at the fatal gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012.
Nearly 35,000 rape cases were reported to Indian police and 7,000 convictions were made in 2015, both increasing by about 40 per cent from three years earlier, according to government data.
AP/Reuters
Topics: sexual-offences, corruption, india
First posted