Kathua case shadow on Bharat Jodo Yatra: J&K Congress leader resigns over Dogra leader’s participation

“In view of Ch Lal Singh’s proposal of joining @bharatjodo & @INCJammuKashmir allowing the same, I am left with no other option but to resign from @INCIndia(.) Lal Singh was responsible in sabotaging the Kathua rape case in 2018 by brazenly defending rapists,” Deepika Pushkar Nath wrote on Twitter. “Lal Singh divided the entire region of Jammu & Kashmir to protect the rapists and @bharatjodo is ideologically opposite [sic]. On ideological grounds, I cannot share the party platform with such a person,” she wrote.

As a lawyer, Deepika had represented the victim’s parents in the J&K High Court, and sought a court-monitored investigation into the matter. She had also taken the accused to the Supreme Court, seeking transfer of the trial from J&K to Pathankot in neighbouring Punjab.

Eight people, including four policemen and a retired revenue officer, were arrested in the matter. Of them, seven were put to trial before a sessions court in Pathankot, while chargesheet against the eighth accused was pending, following controversy over his age — in view of the accused’s claim that he was a minor (i.e., below 18 years of age) — while medical evidence suggested he was 19.

Six of the seven accused in the trial were convicted and sentenced from three years to life imprisonment. In November 2022, the Supreme Court ordered to hold the trial of the eighth accused as an adult, ruling that he was not a juvenile at the time of the offence. “In the absence of any other conclusive evidence, medical opinion regarding age should be considered to determine the age range of the accused,” the court held.

Lal Singh, a two-time MP and three-time MLA, had left Congress to join the BJP ahead of the 2014 Assembly elections. He was inducted as a Cabinet minister into the PDP-BJP coalition government as well. However, in 2018, several months before the government fell, Singh quit the BJP following controversy over his participation in a rally organised in support of the demand by the accused for a CBI inquiry into the matter. He later founded his own Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan party.

When asked about Lal Singh joining the BJY, AICC J&K in-charge Rajni Patil said anyone who believes that Rahul Gandhi is bridging the gap between different communities, religions and castes, is welcome. “We are only focussed on our leader’s march. We have nothing to do with what a local leader has done locally,” she said, adding that Rahul Gandhi is also not carrying the Congress flag but the Indian tricolour. Anyone who believes in the Indian Constitution and its national flag, could join the march, she added.

Political observers said Deepika’s resignation was not going to have much impact, in view of her not having a big mass base on the ground. Moreover, it was not Lal Singh alone who had attended the rally organised in support of the demand by the Kathua rape accused for a CBI enquiry, but by his then Cabinet colleague Chander Parkash Ganga as well.

Both Lal Singh and Ganga were in the BJP then. Both were made to resign from the Cabinet. But while the former quit the party and floated his own outfit, the latter was still in the BJP. As such, the BJP wouldn’t want to rake up the issue, as it too had one leader who was a supporter of the Kathua rape accused in its ranks.