Bakarwal tribe minor raped in Jammu and Kashmir's Ramban district, forced to abort 3-month-old foetus

In yet another horrific incident of atrocity against women in Jammu and Kashmir, a 13-year-old girl from the nomadic tribe of the Bakarwal community was raped in the Ramban district. This comes barely after a year of the horrendous rape and murder of a minor girl of the same community in Kathua. The teenager, who was raped while grazing cattle near the woods, didn’t tell anybody about her ordeal until she realised that she was three months pregnant. The girl was made to undergo an abortion. However, doctors at the Jammu hospital said that the pregnancy put her life at risk.

The father of the victim said that the men beat her up and raped her until she lost consciousness. “She told us that she pleaded before them, but they beat her up and one of them raped her till she lost consciousness. She doesn’t how many times she was raped,” said the teenager’s father as quoted by News18. He also said that the girl was accosted to the nearby woods, who later threatened to kill her if she divulged anything about the incident.

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A relative said the girl realised she was pregnant a few months later and approached one of the perpetrators “who got her some medicine”. “The girl was shifted to Ramban Hospital by some of the villagers from where she was shifted to Jammu hospital,” a villager said. 
the family of the victim filed an FIR and one of the rapists was arrested. “We filed an FIR after receiving a complaint from the mother of the victim on January 4,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ramban, Anita Sharma told News18. “The girl has been raped but we can’t say if it is a gang-rape. Her mother has also accused only one person,” Sharma said. 

A special investigation team was formed to probe the incident. The victim and her mother’s statements were recorded, however, they don’t know the actual date of the crime. The police are also trying to ascertain the exact age of the teenager.

Last week, there were protests in the Ramsoo area over the rape with protesters alleging that the police were going slow with the investigation. They alleged that the rape was yet another attempt to remove Muslims from Jammu, which was also allegedly the motive behind the Kathua rape and murder.

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“We want to leave from this area. They have turned our home into hell… It would have been better had they killed us all. Why did they do this to my daughter?” the victim’s father said. “We are living in fear. Crimes and hate against us are increasing in these areas. We feel insecure here,” said a Bakarwal tribe member who lives in a nearby village.