Kathua: Child murder and teen arrest take communal turn, parties take sides

The girl, a Bakerwal, was abducted on January 10 when playing with other nomad children from near her home here. Police registered an FIR two days later. On January 17, her body was found in the forests nearby.

Alleging that the girl had been raped before her murder, the Bakerwals along with her body blocked the Jammu-Kathua national highway. As the opposition National Conference and Congress raised the matter in the Assembly on January 18, police picked up a 15-year-old Hindu boy and claimed to have solved the abduction-cum-murder. The rape allegation is yet to be established as the medical report is awaited.

The Bakerwals believe the boy was picked up to shield the real accused, questioning how someone that young would have kidnapped a girl and kept her hidden for six days. With the Hindus too seeing a “cover-up” and a conspiracy against the community, the PDP-BJP government first ordered a magisterial probe and later handed over investigations to the Crime Branch. The villagers, however, are seeking a CBI probe.

Such is the tension between the two communities that the villagers did not let the girl’s body be buried in the local graveyard, and it had to be taken to a burial ground 8 km away in Kannah village.

The Bakerwals, led by Talib Hussain, held a protest march in Jammu Tuesday. Marchers, who were stopped by police, submitted a memorandum to the additional deputy commissioner. The Hindus, from all over Hiranagar tehsil, have come together under the ‘Hindu Ekta Manch’, which will hold a rally Wednesday. They have met Forest Minister Chowdhary Lal Singh, besides BJP Kathua and Hiranagar MLAs Rajeev Jasrotia and Kuldeep Raj. Describing the murder as “dastardly”, MLA Raj said they too wanted the accused brought to book.

The girl, her parents and two siblings, both elder, came from Kargil in October to stay at their pucca house in the forests of Kathua, next to a village with nearly two dozen Brahmin households. Her father had bought two acres from a villager in 2003, and built the house.

Her mother says that on January 10 morning, the girl, as per her usual routine, took over a dozen mules for grazing in the jungle. The other children playing with her reportedly told the family that some of the mules strayed away, and that she went after them and disappeared.

Her father said they kept looking for her in the bakerwal deras (settlements) nearby, before approaching the Hiranagar Police Station the next morning. According to the father, stationhouse officer Suresh Gautam asked them to come after two days, and only filed an FIR after they returned January 12 morning.

Gautam has been suspended following protests by Bakerwals.

On January 17, Jagdish Lal, who belongs to the Hindu nomadic tribe Gaddi, called up the girl’s family, whom he knew, and told them he had found the girl’s body in the forest while looking for his livestock. Police sniffer dogs traced her scent to Lal’s cattle shed as well as a cattle shed belonging to a former local patwari. Police took into custody Lal’s son, his domestic help, a Bakerwal himself, and the ex-patwari’s 15-year-old nephew.

While Lal’s son and his help were let off, the 15-year-old was arrested and sent to a juvenile home. The ex-patwari agreed that his nephew was a drug addict, but denied the abduction charge. Police, however, say the boy has confessed to taking the girl to his uncle’s cattle shed, and strangulating her when she resisted rape.

The Bakerwals believe other people too were involved, and that it was impossible for a minor to have carried away the girl on his own and kept her in a shed within a residential area without anyone coming to know. They claim the accused first raped her at the ex-patwari’s cattle shed, and when police came under pressure, killed her and moved her to Lal’s. They also believe it was the Gaddi nomad who threw her body in the jungle out of fear, and called her family hoping to turn suspicion away from him.

Calling his nephew’s arrest part of a Bakerwal conspiracy, the ex-patwari said, “Ours being a 100 per cent Brahmin village, I have been against their unnecessary movement through the village. Moreover, I head a place of worship that is becoming popular among Hindus. The Bakerwals are envious.”

He said the girl could not have gone unobserved in his cattle shed as his family members visit it daily to milk and feed the cows.

Lal could not be contacted.

Additional Director General of Police Alok Puri, who, along with other senior officials, visited the spot on Saturday, said the Crime Branch will reconstruct the crime scene to begin investigation in a “systematic and scientific” manner.

The incident comes amidst growing distrust between the Bakerwals and Hindu villagers in these parts. For generations, the Bakerwals have been coming here, and villagers would allow them to collect leaves for their livestock from trees, in lieu of payment. For three or four years though, a campaign has been on alleging that the Bakerwals would usurp the land given to them as evacuee/state property.

Recently, the villagers allowed Gaddi Hindus to stay near the village. Talib says the villagers have started selling their leaves to this nomadic tribe instead of the Bakerwals.