Amid growing protests demanding justice for Asifa, an eight-year-old girl who was brutally raped and murdered in Kathua, the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti today said her government will bring a new law that will make the death penalty mandatory for those who rape minors.
“I want to assure the entire nation that I stand committed not just to ensure justice for Ashifa but also seek exemplary punishment for those responsible for a crime whose brutal savagery has shamed humanity,” Chief Minister Mufti said on Thursday.
“We will never ever let another child suffer in this way. We will bring a new law that will make the death penalty mandatory for those who rape minors, so that little Ashifa’s case becomes the last,” she said.
With this, J&K will become the third state to enact a law to award death sentence for rape of minor girls. In December last year, Madhya Pradesh had become the first state to take such a step, followed by Rajasthan. Last month, Delhi unanimously passed a resolution demanding amendments to the existing law to award death penalty to those convicted of rape of children under 12.
Eight-year-old Asifa, belonging to a nomadic Muslim tribe in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, was allegedly abducted, drugged, raped, and killed. Her body was found a week later.
The chargesheet revealed that the abduction, rape and killing of the Bakherwal girl was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority nomadic community from the area.
It said the girl was allegedly raped by six men, who had held her in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua district for a week in January, was kept sedated and sexually assaulted once again before she was bludgeoned to death.