Srinagar: Kashmir High Court Bar Association on Sunday said that rapists and murders of eight-year-old Kathua girl should be treated as terrorists and awarded death penalty as Pakistan an anti-terror court did to a suspected serial killer to death for the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl Zainab Ansari.
In a statement issued here, the lawyers body also strongly condemns the taking out of a protest march by Hindu Ekta Manch in Kathua in support of a criminal Deepak Khujoria, a Special Police Officer, who, as per the Crime Branch, which was investigating the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl Asifa Bano of Hira Nagar, Kathua, had kidnapped and raped the minor girl and after keeping her captive for seven days, had murdered her, in a brutal and barbaric manner.
“The Bar Association maintains that anyone, who is accused of kidnapping a minor and thereafter raping and murdering the child, should be treated as a terrorist and awarded a death penalty, as has been done by an anti-terror court in Pakistan, which completed the trial of a rape and murder case within four days and sentenced a serial killer to death, who had raped and murdered a seven-year-old girl.”
The Bar Association also maintains that instead of taking out a procession in support of a criminal, the people, who were part of the protest march, led by Hindu Ekta Manch, should have demanded that the investigation of the case be completed within a shortest possible time and the challan against the accused be filed before a fast track Court and the proceedings of the case should be conducted on day to day basis. However, instead of doing so, the Hindu Ekta Manch, has taken out a rally in support of the accused, in which a “BJP as well as a Congress” Leader participated “shamelessly”, the lawyers body said.
“The Bar Association while terming the act of rape and murder of a teenager at the hands of a police person, as inhuman, barbaric demands that the investigation of the case should be brought to its logical end forthwith and the accused be tried in a fast track court and awarded the death sentence, so that no one escapes the clutches of law, by inciting the people on communal and political belief.”
