Kathua rape accused must be punished, says UN chief

AGENCIES

 

UNITED NATIONS/JAMMU/NEW DELHI

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wants Indian authorities to ensure that the perpetrators of the “horrific” gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua be brought to justice.

His spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Friday that he has seen reports about the “horrific case” of the abuse and murder of the nomadic Bakerwal community girl.

“We very much hope that the authorities will bring the perpetrators to justice so they can be held accountable for the murder of this young girl,” he said.

On Friday two Bharatiya Janata Party ministers, Choudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, who attended a rally in support of the Kathua accused in March, resigned from the Jammu and Kashmir government led by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

The BJP on Saturday accepted the resignation of the two ministers but said their unwise move to go and pacify people rallying for suspects of rape and murder of a minor was “mistaken for trying to shield the accused”.

BJP general secretary and its Kashmir pointsman Ram Madhav, who was here to attend the party’s legislature meet, ruled out any threat to the ruling alliance in the wake of the resignations by the two ministers

Meanwhile, the CBI on Saturday  made a second arrest in the Unnao rape case as it took into custody Shashi Singh, the woman who allegedly took the victim to BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar on the day of crime, officials
said.

A special court in Lucknow has sent Sengar, the prime accused in the case, to a seven-day CBI custody, they said.

In her complaint to UP police, now part of the CBI FIR, the victim’s mother has alleged that Shashi Singh had lured her daughter and took her to Sengar’s residence where he raped her.

She has also alleged that while the MLA was raping her daughter, Shashi Singh stood outside the room as a guard.

The agency arrested the BJP MLA from Bangarmau last night after 16 hours of questioning at its office in Lucknow.