Eight-year-old's family to move SC for trial outside J&K

NEW DELHI: The family of the 8-year-old who was raped and murdered in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua, has decided to ask the Supreme Court to transfer the trial to another state. The murder of the child, who belongs to a nomadic Muslim community, outraged the country after the details were exposed in a police charge sheet last week.

Citing that the local lawyers stopped the Crime Branch from filing the charge sheet at the Kathua district court, the family lawyers said they would ask for a transfer.

"We are apprehensive that the trial will not happen peacefully, we request the Supreme Court to transfer this case to some other state," the lawyer added.

On Saturday, Chander Parkash Ganga, one of the J&K ex-ministers accused of attending a rally of the Hindu Ekta Manch, claimed that he had participated in the event on BJP's instructions.

He claimed the party was making him a scapegoat and said that he went there on J&K BJP president Sat Sharma's orders.

Thousands joined in candle-light marches are being held across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Goa and Kerala. Protests are also being held in Ajmer and Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh.

Nearly 2,000 protesters, including activists who participated in the 'Not In My Name' protests last year, have gathered in Parliament street at the heart of Delhi. Swati Maliwal, the chief of Delhi Women's Commission, is holding a hunger strike.

Bar Council of India (BCI) on Sunday asked the Bar Association of Jammu (BAJ) to call off its strike and announced that it would constitute a five-member team to investigate the conduct of the association in the Kathua rape-and-murder case involving an eight-year-old girl.

"If any lawyer is found guilty in the case, we have the rights to cancel their license for a lifetime," said Manan Kumar Mishra, chairman of BCI.

An FIR was registered against lawyers who had tried to block the presentation of a charge sheet by the Crime Branch in the court of a Chief Judicial Magistrate at Kathua in the case earlier this week on Monday. The lawyers also tried preventing a woman lawyer from appearing for the victim's family.