In Kashmir’s Baramulla district, a nine-year-old girl was brutally gangraped and murdered. Her mutilated body was found on Sunday, which triggered protests in the area. The stepmother and stepbrother of the minor, who are among the accused in the case, have been arrested.
The minor was a resident of Baramulla and had gone missing on August 24. The Hindustan Times quoted Baramulla’s senior superintendent of police (SSP), Imtiyaz Hussain, who said, “During sustained questioning of the step-mother of the deceased and other suspects, a bone-chilling and horrible account of the rape and murder of the nine-year-old child came to be known.”
People hold placards at a protest against the rape of an eight-year-old girl, in Kathua, near Jammu and a teenager in Unnao, UP. Credit: REUTERS
Indian Express reported that the girl’s body was found one kilometre away from her house with her eyes gouged out. Police claim that the girl’s stepmother was jealous of the child, who was the daughter of her husband and his second wife. She allegedly took the child to a nearby forest on August 23, where the girl’s step-brother (the woman’s son) as well as his friends sexually assaulted the minor and then killed her.
The stepmother strangulated her, while her son allegedly struck the minor girl’s head with an axe, which led to her death. “After that one of the accused went back home and brought acid in a bottle. A 19-year-old associate of the stepbrother gouged out her eyes with a sharp knife and poured acid on her body,” Hussain told NDTV.
Baramulla’s Senior SP Mir claims that the 14-year-old stepbrother’s friends were aged 14, 19 and 28. All the accused have confessed to the crime, including two juveniles.
