The Supreme Court, had in 2018, directed the case to be shifted out of Jammu and Kashmir and ordered the sessions court in Pathankot to hear it on a daily basis.
Defending the team that probed the Kathua rape and murder case last year, Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh on Wednesday said no witnesses were tortured and the court's directive of an FIR against the investigating police officials would be followed.
In June this year, District and Sessions Judge Tejwinder Singh sentenced to life imprisonment the three main accused, while sentencing five years in jail to three others for destruction of evidence in the case that shook the nation.
Recognising the gravity of the crime, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday heard on priority petitions of the victim's family and the six convicts in the brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir.
The only acquittal in the Kathua rape-and-murder case came as the trial court set aside the statement of three prosecution witnesses who had claimed that Vishal Jangotra, the son of the main culprit Sanji Ram, was in the area at the time of the crime.
After nearly a year-long trial, a Pathankot court on Monday sentenced to life imprisonment the three main accused in the gangrape-and-murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua, while awarding five years in jail to three others for destruction of evidence.
According to the 15-page charge sheet, the eight-year-old girl, who was kidnapped on January 10 last year, was allegedly raped in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua district after having been kept sedated for four days before she was bludgeoned to death.
The eight-year-old girl, belonging to a nomadic tribe, was allegedly kidnapped on January 10 and her body was found on January 17. I
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud asked the J&K government to file its response by August 27 as it directed the next hearing of the matter on August 29.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising had submitted that Hussain had been brutally tortured in police custody and that judicial intervention was needed in the case.
According to the charge sheet filed by the crime branch, the answer sheets as well as attendance sheet of Vishal, son of alleged main accused Sanji Ram, were sent to handwriting experts, also known as Questioners of Examined Documents (QED).
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra directed the Jammu and Kashmir Police to file a supplementary charge sheet in the case within eight weeks.
Ankur Sharma, one of the lawyers defending the accused in the Kathua rape-and-murder case, asked Governor N N Vohra to immediately order a CBI enquiry into the case.
"Even more horrifying was the petty politics played using that little girl, stoking Hindu-Muslim tension. It was such an injustice to her very soul," Mufti said.
While seven of the accused are facing trial in the court here on the directions of the Supreme Court, the eighth accused in the case is facing trial in a juvenile court in Kathua district.
According to the medical opinion received recently by the crime branch, the doctors said the tablet given to the eight-year-old girl could have pushed her into a state of shock or coma (loss of consciousness).
Charges against seven of the eight accused of raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district were imposed by the Pathankot court
Social media platforms Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were issued notices by the court after their Indian subsidiaries informed the bench that they were not the concerned entity to reply to the court's notice on the issue.
On Monday, the apex court had directed that the trail in this case be shifted from Jammu to Pathankot in Punjab.
Directing day-to-day "in-camera" trial, the apex court asked the district and sessions judge at Pathankot to personally undertake the trial proceedings.
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