NEW DELHI: The J&K Police chargesheet in the Kathua rape and murder of a minor girl has said that the mastermind instigated his juvenile nephew and six others to execute the ghastly act to drive out the nomadic Muslim community of Bakarwals from Hiranagar tehsil.Bakarwals, a tribe that moves through seasons in the Pir Panjal range of J&K, are mainly shepherds.The chargesheet submitted to the chief judicial magistrate, Kathua, late on Monday night said Sanji Ram, the mastermind, was “against the settlement” of Bakarwals in the tehsil, and had been “motivating” members of the Hindu community of the area to not provide them land for grazing. His co-conspirators were also “against the settlement of Bakarwals in the area” and had asked him to “chalk out a strategy for dislodging” them.The “general impression” among the Hindu community in the tehsil was that “Bakarwals indulge in cow slaughter” and “drug trafficking” which was “turning their children into drug addicts”, the chargesheet said, adding that as a result, Hindus had been “blaming the Bakarwals on one pretext or the other and used to threaten them”.This rivalry between the two communities in the area has resulted into registration of FIRs and counter-FIRs at various police stations of the area, the chargesheet said.According to the crime branch investigation, the minor was held captive in a temple, using sedatives, gangraped several times through the week and even before she was killed. The eight-year-old was gang-raped also after the mastermind “performed rituals” in the place of worship.The crime has triggered communal tension in the state, with many lawyers in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region protesting against police and demanding a CBI investigation. Two of the BJP leaders have also supported the lawyers.

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