Srinagar
Former Jammu and Kashmir minister and BJP MLA Choudhary Lal Singh took out a rally from Jammu to Kathua on Tuesday, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe and a narco test in the Kathua rape case.
This comes just a day after the eight people accused of raping and killing the eight-year-old girl pleaded not guilty and asked the judge for a narcoanalysis test.
Seven out of the eight accused were produced before district and sessions Judge Sanjay Gupta on Monday.
The judge asked the state crime branch to give them copies of the chargesheet and fixed 28 April as the next date of hearing.
Special police officer Deepak Khajuria, who is alleged to have repeatedly raped the child, told reporters from the police van that he was also demanding a narco test, also known as the “truth test”, and a CBI probe.
Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, BJP ministers in the Jammu and Kashmir coalition government, had tendered their resignations after facing criticism for their participation in an event supporting the accused in the Kathua case.
“The fight is for justice only and it will be done with identifying real culprits,” Singh said while addressing hundreds of supporters at Satwari Chowk in Jammu as he began his Kathua march.
“We are fighting to punish the culprits of Asifa’s rape and murder case but it is unfortunate that people living far away are interpreting this case without knowing the facts,” he said.
Singh later said that his participation in the rally was meant to defuse the situation. “We had gone to defuse the situation created due to migration one and half months back. We told them they should go back so that an ugly situation was not created,” he had said.
