Jammu: The crime branch of police on Monday produced charge sheet against seven out of eight accused persons before Chief Judicial Magistrate Kathua with regard to the gruesome rape and murder of 8-year-old Asifa Bano in January this year.
A senior officer told INS that the charge sheet against one more accused, a juvenile person, will be produced separately.
The investigating agency has arrested all the eight accused persons including the mastermind Sanji Ram and his son Vishal Kumar and some SPOs
The minor girl had been missing since January 10 when she failed to return home from watering horses in her native Rassana forests, and her body was found on January 17.
The next day, after protests rocked the area, the Kathua police had said that a SIT, under SDPO border, had been set up to investigate the case.
On January 20, the government transferred the Station House Officer of the Hiranagar police station, ordering a magisterial probe, and three days later, on January 23, handed the case over to the Crime Branch.
Sanji Ram, a retired revenue officer, surrendered before the crime branch on March 20 and the development came a day after his son Vishal Kumar was arrested from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, in connection with the case (FIR No: 10/2018 U/S 363, 320, 376, 302 RPC). Both father and son were evading arrest in connection with the gruesome rape and murder which send shock waves across the state.
The investigations had revealed that it was not a random crime but part of a wider conspiracy to dislodge the Bakarwal community from the Rassana village in Kathua. Sanji Ram has been bent upon to dislodge the nomad community from Rassana village, the probe said.
