Author: Abhishek Bharadwaj
Publication: Rightlog.in
Date: April 16, 2018
URL:      https://rightlog.in/2018/04/kathua-rape-asifa-media-01/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

The case of the rape of a minor girl named Asifa in Kathua has shaken the length and breadth of the nation. The whole country has stood up to show solidarity with the family of the deceased 8 year old Asifa. A couple of questions still remain to be answered satisfactorily in matters related to the case. There seems to be some foul play in the manner in which the investigations have been carried out.

The first point is the way in which the Bar Association and its members have been targeted by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the mainstream media houses. The Bar Association was accused of allegedly favouring the rapists, taking their side and demanding their release.  They were even shown in a bad light for taking out a procession, again, allegedly in support of the accused rapists. While the true story was conveniently hidden from sight, the Jammu Bar Association had called for a strike demanding to put an end to the probe which was targeted towards the Dogras of Hiranagar. The Bar Association in reality wanted the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which would result in swift and accurate justice without harassing the Hindu population of the neighbouring villages. They were raising the voices of the people who had started fleeing from their homes owing to the harassment being meted out by the team of investigators from Jammu and Kashmir Crime Branch.

The second point is pertaining to why there has been no urgency shown by the Jammu and Kashmir government to transfer the Asifa murder case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Kathua rape case has been handled by 3 different heads of investigation. The team constituting the first one had individuals who themselves turned out to be accused of accepting bribes in relation to the case. The matter was then transferred to the Crime Branch, which had individuals with previous crime records. The presence of Irfan Wani, a Crime Branch official, who himself was an accused in a murder and rape case in 2007, did not go down well with the public. He had spent over a year in jail on charges of custodial death and rape. This led to a new head being assigned for the investigations in the case. Ramesh Kumar Jalla, Senior Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) was finally made head of the investigating team and he filed a charge sheet. The lack of any initiative by the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to hand over the case to the CBI after a multitude of failures is another controversial stance.

The third point that needs to be brought up in relation to the Kathua rape case is the mainstream media which gave this whole incident a communal angle. The media made the accused criminals a poster of the Hindu communities in the Jammu area. It tried to portray the Bakarwal community as a target of the Hindu families. While the truth is nowhere near to it, the Bakarwal community and the Hindus of the area have always enjoyed a very cordial relationship. Moreover, there were no questions raised by the media on why the case had not been transferred to the CBI even after demands were made by Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) ministers.

The lack of outrage by the media houses on this critical point is very hard to understand. The Unnao case was handed over to the CBI as soon as possible, why then does the PDP want to keep matters in its own hands here?