Kathua rape-horror: Remembering his daughter, father breaks down
What's the story
The nation is angry with what happened in Kathua to an eight-year-old who went to graze her horses.
Driven by hate to force Bakarwal community out of Jammu, the accused planned it all, leaving a family broken.
A devastated father asked, "Did she think in terms of Hindu and Musalman? She was an innocent child," as he spoke to Indian Express.
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"Did she think in terms of Hindu, Musalman," asks father
The 35-year-old father said, "If they had to take revenge, they could have picked someone else. She couldn't tell her arms from her legs, couldn't tell which hand was right and which left. She never thought who was a Hindu, who a Muslim."
An innocent child
Youngest of three kids, victim was adopted by father
The eight-year-old's father adopted her when she was one, from his sister.
The little girl would keep her mother company when others left home. Her elder brothers are in Classes 11 and 6.
"Whenever I went out of the house, she insisted on accompanying me," the father said. The parents had planned to get her admitted to a private school this summer.
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Mother recalls they didn't have big dreams for her
"We never thought we would make her a doctor, a teacher. We thought that if she studied, she could look after herself, learn how to live well. She was so pretty. We never thought we would lose her to beasts before that," said the mother.
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Earlier, Hindu and Muslims lived in harmony. But something changed
The father recalled nothing like this happened to the tribals before. "We would even visit each other's (Hindus) home and attend wedding functions," he added.
But after ex-revenue official (also the accused mastermind) Sanji Ram took over the role of elderly, things changed.
"They would not allow us to even walk on the road passing through the village," he said.
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Sanji Ram accused us of smuggling cows: Victim's father
The father said, "The accused incited people against us, that we smuggle cows from Jammu to Kashmir for sale, that we sell drugs, that our cattle damage their standing crops... that our settlement would create problems for Hindus. We had no such thing in mind."
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"Remembering daughter was tortured in prayer hall is heart-breaking"
The father said they never thought to check the prayer-hall as SPO Deepak Khajuria (one of the accused) was deployed outside it.
The family with their 200-250 cattle, dozen horses, are moving to Kargil to spend summer. Hopeful to get justice, the father added, Allah's decision will be final.
They will return to Kathua in September, just like every year.