Three of the six convicted- Sanji Ram the main accused, Parvesh and Deepak Khajuria -in the rape-and-murder case of an eight-year-old girl in
Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua have been awarded life imprisonment by the
District and Sessions Court Pathankot. The other three convicts have been sentenced to 5 year imprisonment and slapped with a fine.
The crime branch of J&K Police had filed the chargesheet against eight accused, including a juvenile.
Sanji Ram, the caretaker of the temple where the crime took place, Special Police Officer Deepak Khajuria and Parvesh Kumar, a civilian, have been convicted under Ranbir Penal Code sections pertaining to criminal conspiracy, murder, gangrape and destruction of evidence, the lawyers said.
Vishal, the seventh accused and Sanjhi Ram's son, has been acquitted for the want of evidence. The trial against the juvenile, who is Sanji Ram's Nephew, is yet to begin as the petition on determining his age is due in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. Investigators said the accused juvenile had abducted the girl under the pretext of helping her find her horses.
The abduction, rape and killing of the child was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority nomadic community from the area, the chargesheet said.
The charges of rape and murder were framed by the district and sessions judge against seven out of the eight accused.
According to the 15-page chargesheet filed in April last year, the girl was kidnapped on January 10 that year and was allegedly raped in captivity in a small village temple, exclusively manned by Ram, after having been kept sedated for four days. She was later bludgeoned to death.
The Crime Branch arrested Ram, his juvenile nephew and his son Vishal, and two special police officers Khajuria and Verma. Raj and Dutta, who allegedly took Rs 4 lakh from Ram and destroyed crucial evidence, were also arrested.