Kathua Rape Case: The Rise, Failure & End of the Hindu Ekta Manch

The rejection of a CBI inquiry by the SC and the infighting within the Manch made it lose momentum and support.

Within a year of its rise to grabbing headlines and near disappearance, two things have been apparent. Their lack of sympathy for the 8-year-old girl and their blinkered support for the Hindu accused.

(Illustration: Erum Gour/The Quint)

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Cameraperson: Aishwarya S Iyer

An aggressive Kant Kumar, vice president of the Hindu Ekta Manch, has mellowed over the last year. After having issued threats and ultimatums over Hindus being picked by police and arrested during the 2018 Kathua rape case, he accepts they have failed.

“We failed as we were not able to bring justice to our people through our agitation,” Kumar tells The Quint, while standing at Koota modh, the spot where the Hindu Ekta Manch had camped and protested for months last year.

The ‘people’ he is referring to are the seven men accused of raping and murdering an 8-year-old Gujjar Bakarwal girl in January 2018. Miffed at the way the investigation was conducted, the Hindu Ekta Manch was formed to demand a CBI inquiry. The Supreme Court, however, rejected their plea in September 2018.

The rejection of a CBI inquiry by the Supreme Court ‘hurt their morale’, and to add to that, infighting within the Manch led to two factions.

The place where the Hindu Ekta Manch protested has ‘Dogra Ekta Manch’ written all over in bright red capital letters. A political outfit created by former MP/MLA and BJP cabinet minister Chaudhary Lal Singh, who resigned from the party after attending the HEM rally in support of the Hindu accused in Kathua last year.

When The Quint met the daughter of Sanji Ram, the main accused in the Kathua rape case, she insisted the Hindu Ekta Manch is now the Dogra Ekta Manch.

Singh unabashedly said he had dissolved the Manch. “Hindu Ekta Manch is nowhere. It was made by a few people. I went and finished it, saying that there was no need. This girl is a Bakarwal's daughter, a Muslim's daughter, she is our daughter, you cannot call this the Hindu Ekta Manch. We dissolved it and said we call this the Dogra Ekta Manch, so Muslims and Hindus sit together,” he said.

On the other side, there are others who are trying to hold on to the Manch despite its collapse. “Hindu Ekta Manch workers were not workers of Chaudhary Lal Singh, he came at the last stage. Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan is Chaudhary Lal Singh's group. First it was called Dogra Ekta Manch, now [it’s] Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan. First he said it was non-political, and [then], his workers fought the panchayat elections recently,” Hindu Ekta Manch president Vijay Kumar said. Kumar argued that the Manch still exists and will rise again if atrocities are inflicted upon “our people”.

From grabbing headlines to nearly disappearing within a year, two things have been apparent about the Manch: their lack of sympathy for the murdered 8-year-old girl and their blinkered support for the Hindu accused.