JAMMU: The alleged mastermind behind the abduction, rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua district in January surrendered before the crime branch of Jammu and Kashmir Police on Tuesday.
Sources said the accused
Sanji Ram
is a former revenue official who planned the crime to displace the nomad families living in the
Hiranagar
region. He had been evading arrest after his involvement became clear.
After his name surfaced in the case, Sanji went underground. He surrendered only after his son Vishal - a BSc Agriculture student - was arrested from
Uttar Pradesh's
Meerut
on Sunday, sources added. It is believed that some cops, in connivance with the accused, had earlier tried to destroy evidence related to the crime.
So far, the crime branch has arrested a total of eight people in the case, including special police officers Deepak Khajuria and Surinder Verma, sub-inspector Anand Dutta, and constable Tilak Raj. The arrested civilians are Parvesh Kumar, Sanji, his son Vishal and one juvenile.
The victim, an eight-year-old nomad girl, was abducted from her house on January 10 and kept in a cattle shed, where she was repeatedly raped. Her brutalized body was found near a forest on January 17.
The crime had garnered widespread outrage in the legislative assembly, with MLAs slamming the police for laxity in the probe. Following heated protests, the state government first ordered a magisterial inquiry and suspended the Hiranagar SHO, before handing over the probe to the crime branch on January 23.
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