New Delhi, April 12, 2023 (PPI-OT):A contentious book written by Hindutva author Madhu Kishwar has drawn severe criticism for denigrating 8-year-old Muslim girl who was brutally gang-raped and murdered by Hindu fanatics including Indian policemen in Kathua district of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. In January 2018, a minor Muslim girl from Kathua was kidnapped and gang-raped after being kept sedated for four days in a small village Hindu temple. A special court on June 10, 2019 sentenced three persons to life imprisonment in the case, while three others were handed down five years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine each.

Madhu Kishwar, a former academic who is notorious for her anti-Muslim views, wrote the book “The Girl from Kathua: A Sacrificial Victim of Ghazwa-e-Hind”. The event of launch of the book at the Constitution Club was attended by Member of Indian Rajya Sabha, Sonal Mansingh and Maj. Gen. (Rtd.) G.D. Bakshi. When the poster of the book launch event surfaced on social media, several people expressed their anguish, anger and disgust over attempts to whitewash the heinous crime.

Journalist S.R. Praveen called the Hindu rightists “the most disgusting bunch of people in the country” for whitewashing those who rape and murder. “The honour of being the most disgusting bunch of people in the country goes to the saffron gang. Now they are out with a book and an event to whitewash the men who raped and murdered a minor girl in Kathua. If all the public protests in support of the rapists weren’t enuf (weren’t enough)!” said Praveen on Twitter. A rally was taken out in support of those who were involved in the gang-rape of the minor. Some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders also attended the rally. Sanji Ram, Deepak Khajuria and Pravesh Kumar, Tilak Raj, Anand Dutta and Surender Verma were convicted in the case.

A social media woman activist, Anindita, said that Madhu Kishwar lied “through her teeth about the ghastly violent death of a child.” She also wrote long paragraphs about the Kathua rape victim. “The murder and gang-rape of a minor child A (reference to the minor girl) from Kathua is soul crushing. It must not be seen as a social-sexual crime but one that is deeply political and tied to the larger issue of the militarisation, occupation and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war in the region,” she tweeted.

“This case involves a premeditated plan to strike fear in the Gujjar-Bakerwal (migratory pastoralist) community and the crime branch has proved this. Such extreme violence on a young child is incomprehensible. The charge sheet is filled with the savage acts that were meted on the body of the young child who was chosen because she was a soft target. This gang-rape murder cannot be treated as apolitical since it is proven beyond doubt that it was planned to drive out the Gujjar-Bakerwals who are a marginalised Muslim community,” Anindita’s tweet added. She pointed out that the Hindu community did not allow A to be buried in the area even though the family lawfully owned space for burial. “In 1947 Jammu region became dominantly Hindu after a large-scale Muslim massacre was carefully orchestrated during the partition. While this shameful history is carefully hidden from common view, A’s case brings back the horrors of a communal past, and the potential for no doubt mindless but orchestrated violence that Indian settler colonialism is capable of bringing back or rather has brought back,” she said.

Another social media activist, Asif Khan, slammed the book by describing it as a part of a ‘sick society’. “Now these Hindutva fascists are launching a book to whitewash the crime, calling that little girl a sacrificial victim,” he said.

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