Early Times Report
JAMMU, May 6: The Supreme Court of India is all set to hear the highly publicized and exceptionally sensitive Kathua rape and murder case on Monday. Will it order handing over of this case to CBI and transfer it out of Kathua, Jammu? Or will it give clean chit to the J&K Crime Branch, whose charge-sheet has been contested by the people of Kathua, Bar Association Jammu, civil society groups, the Bar Council of India team and the Group of Intellectuals and Academicians, and allow the Kathua court to handle the case? All of them, including the accused, have been favouring CBI probe. Things will become clear tomorrow.
The stand of the PDP-led coalition government is too well known. It, like the victim's family, and others it has hailed the Crime Branch and its charge-sheet and opposed the plea of the accused seeking CBI probe into the case. It has also made it clear that it would want the accused to be tried by a J&K court, saying the state had its own Criminal Procedure Code.
As for separatists, civil society groups in Kashmir, opinion-makers, commentators and the parties like the NC, they have demanded that the case be transferred from Kathua to some other court in Kashmir, as there was the possibility of the people and lawyers of Kathua influencing the course of the trial. The attitude of the Congress is no different.
The ally of the PDP, BJP, is a divided house. At least 8 party law-makers, including the sacked ministers Lal Singh and CP Ganga, have come out openly in favour of the CBI probe. As far as BJP ministers are concerned, they have thought it politically prudent not to speak. The memory of the ouster of Singh and Ganga is still too fresh to be forgotten. The newly-appointed DY CM Kavinder Gupta has gone to the extent of saying that Kathua has nothing to do with the coalition.
"It was an unfortunate incident in the land of Vaishno Devi, where we worship daughters. We have to ensure such incidents don't happen. I don't think the Kathua incident has anything to do with the alliance," he on Saturday said in an interview to a national daily.
It would be interesting to see what stand the Narendra Modi Government takes in the Supreme Court? Since the CBI is under the Union Government and since the apex court has also issued notice to it seeking its view, the Narendra Modi Government has to respond. It is, of course, in a difficult situation. If it opposes the CBI probe as demanded for by the accused family and supported by the people of Jammu belonging to a particular community, the BCI, the GIA and several civil society groups in Jammu, the BJP will lose its face in Jammu, its core constituency, as also in the rest of the country, as Rasana is no more a local issue. And if it supports CBI probe, the PDP would lose its face in Kashmir, its core constituency. There are reports that "some top PDP leader has met the Union Home Minister and solicited his support in favour of the Crime Branch and the charge-sheet that it filled in the Kathua court".
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