Nationwide outrage over Kathua rape, murder

NEW DELHI, Apr 12: Congress president Rahul Gandhi today described the rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua as “unimaginable brutality” that cannot go unpunished, and wondered how anybody can seek to protect the culprits.
He also lashed out at the politics being played over the crime.
“How can anyone protect the culprits of such evil,” he asked, adding that the violence against the child was a crime against humanity.
“It cannot go unpunished,” he said on Twitter.
“What have we become if we allow politics to interfere with such unimaginable brutality perpetrated on an innocent child,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Union Minister V K Singh today said “we as humans” had failed the eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community who was gangraped and killed in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district but she would not be denied justice.
Expressing distress over the tragedy, perhaps the first reaction from a BJP Minister, he said we have failed her as humans.
“But she will not be denied justice,” the Minister of State in the External Affairs Ministry added in his tweet.
Meanwhile, the NCP today accused the BJP, the ruling ally in the Mehbooba Mufti Government in Jammu and Kashmir, of “shielding” the accused involved in the alleged gang rape and killing of a minor girl in Kathua.
The Sharad Pawar-led party also accused the BJP of not initiating any action against its rape accused MLA in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
“The gang-rapes in Unnao and Kathua, and the incidents that followed these ghastly crimes are shocking and inhuman. A gang-rape victim’s father is arrested and killed in police custody (in Unnao), but no action is taken against the accused BJP MLA,” NCP general secretary, D P Tripathi, told reporters here.
He said the BJP was supporting the accused persons involved in the alleged gang-rape of a minor girl in Kathua in Jammu. “No party has taken such a stand in independent India,” said Tripathi.
Two-time World Cup winning cricketer Gautam Gambhir and multiple Grand Slam winner Sania Mirza were among the prominent sportspersons who expressed their anger at the rape incidents in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao and Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua.
Gambhir, who has been vocal on a lot of social issues tweeted: “Indian consciousness was raped in Unnao and then in Kathua. It’s now being murdered in corridors of our stinking systems. Come on ‘Mr System’, show us if you have the balls to punish the perpetrators, I challenge you. #KathuaMurderCase #UnnaoRapeCase”
He also raised questions about why advocate Deepika Singh Rajawat was being prevented to fight the case for rape victim in Kathua.
“Shame on those, especially the lawyers, who are challenging and obstructing Deepika Singh Rajawat, the counsel of our victimised daughter from Kathua.? #kathuaHorror,” the Delhi daredevils captain tweeted.
Sania also expressed her disappointment.
“Is this really the kind of country we want to be known as to the world today ?? If we can’t stand up now for this 8 year old girl regardless of our gender,caste,colour or religion then we don’t stand for anything in this world.. Not even humanity.. Makes me sick to the stomach.
“Justice needs to be done … For the sake of keeping our faith in the judiciary and the system alive .. I really hope and pray justice is done .. And soon.. #UnnaoHorror #UnnaoRapeCase,” Sania tweeted. (PTI)

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