Former J&K minister Lal Singh, who has resigned from the cabinet after courting a controversy on the issue of attending a rally of Hindu Ekta Manch (HEM) in which he demanded CBI enquiry into the rape-murder of an eight year old girl in Kathua, on Sunday lashed out at the Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti whom he accused of trying to appease the pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Alishah Geelani who was against handing over the case to CBI.

Lal Singh said that Geelani had issued statements against transferring the case to CBI when residents of the Rassana village belonging to the Hindu community started migrating from there because of alleged excesses of men of the crime branch and demanded CBI enquiry into the case.

The former minister alleged that Mehbooba had succumbed to the pressure of separatists whom he accused of trying to communalise the rape-murder of the child with a view to polarize the situation in Jammu that has so far remained out of their influence.

Lal Singh said that he and the other minister ChanderPrakash Ganga, who has also resigned, were sent to Hiranagar by the BJP leadership last month when some Hindu families alleging torture by the crime branch men migrated from the Rassana village.

Another BJP minister, Abdul GaniKoli, who belonged to the community to which the rape victim belonged, was sent to the Rassana village to meet family members of the child and assure them that justice would be done in the case.

Lal Singh reiterated his demand for CBI enquiry into the matter as people of the area had no confidence in the investigations done by the crime branch of the J&K Police. On the other hand, the PCC chief, GA Mir, has also demanded that the case should be handed over to the CBI so that the real culprits could be arrested. Politics should not be played in the heinous crime.

Meanwhile, National Conference President Farooq Abdullah on Sunday demanded a special session of the legislature so that it could, as announced earlier, propose a bill mandating death penalty for such heinous crimes against children.

The gruesome rape and murder of an eight year old child was not an isolated, spontaneous crime but the manifestation of a deeply repugnant and repressive politics that hinges on the harassment, intimidation and disempowerment of the nomadic Gujjar-Bakerwal communities.