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The defence lawyer of the Kathua rape and murder case has hit out at the only female member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Jammu and Kashmir police probing the case, with seemingly sexist remarks and reportedly questioning her “intelligence” as a woman.
Representing five of the eight accused, Ankur Sharma told News18 that as a “woman and a new officer,” Shwetambri Sharma would have been “misguided by someone.”
Replying to Ankur Sharma’s misogynistic statement, Shwetambri has expressed her concern and has clarified that she was not misled at any given point during the investigation.
“I was never misled at any time during the probe. Also, I never said I want to quit. In fact, despite problems, we stay put in the Kathua case.”
The defence lawyers remarks came in light of Shwetambri revealing to The Quint how hard it was for her to carry out the job.
In the meantime, Ankur Sharma also reportedly raised doubts about the probe carried out by the Crime Branch, claiming it had tortured the witnesses so as to get favourable statements.
According to the charge-sheet filed by the J&K police’s Crime Branch on 9 April, the eight-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by six men, who had held her in captivity in a small village in Kathua district district for a week in January.
The abduction, rape and killing of the Bakerwal girl was part of a carefully planned strategy to remove the minority nomadic community from the area, the 15-page charge-sheet further revealed.
(With inputs from News18)
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