The trial in last year’s rape and murder of eight-year-old nomadic Kathua girl at a court in Punjab’s Pathankot is about to be completed with reports suggesting that the court may pronounce its verdict by June. The trial at Pathankot began in the first week of June last year on the directions of the Supreme Court after lawyers in Kathua had prevented J&K Police from filing the charges against the accused. The incident had sparked a political turmoil after police arrested eight people, including a juvenile and two police officials who were accused of destroying evidence. The case had also caused rift between the then ruling alliance partners the PDP and the BJP with the latter sacking two of its ministers, Choudhury Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, for participating in a rally of Hindu Ekta Manch in support of those arrested by the crime branch in the case. The police has already filed charges of rape and murder against seven out of the eight accused. The trial against the juvenile is yet to begin as his petition regarding his age is to be heard by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. All the accused, except the suspected juvenile, are languishing in Gurdaspur jail. The charges against the accused are crystal clear and these have been established with the help of both circumstantial as well as scientific evidence. There is little doubt that the eight-year-old girl was kidnapped on January 10 last year and raped in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua’s Rasana village where she was kept sedated for four days before being bludgeoned to death. According to police version, the abduction, rape and killing of the child was part of a meticulously planned strategy to scare the minority nomadic community of the area and force them to migrate. Doctors who have been examined and are witnesses in the case have already told the court that an overdose of sedatives was forcibly administered to the victim before murder which could have led her into coma. After examining the sedatives, the drug administered to the victim was shown to contain clonezapam. Considering these facts which have been furnished by the J&K Police in the court of law, the judiciary should not delay pronouncing the verdict. By handing out exemplary punishment, probably life imprisonment, to the accused, the court will be sending out a strong message that all the people of the country are equal in the eyes of law, regardless of their religion.