In a bizarre development in the sensational Kathua rape and murder case, the lawyer of the accused has called the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister a ‘jihadi’.
In an interview to the Indian Express, Ankur Sharma, the lawyer defending the prime accused in the brutal rape and murder case of an eight-year-old said that Mehbooba Mufti was a jihadi, she was a jihadi chief minister.
Alleging her of enforcing the demographic change in the state, Sharma said that Mufti was working for her ‘Islamo-fascist’ communal agenda.
Meanwhile, in the national capital, the Supreme Court today said its "real concern" was to see that a fair trial was conducted in the Kathua case after the Bar Council of India said the lawyers' body in the district had neither obstructed the Crime Branch from filing the charge sheet nor the advocate representing the victim's family.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that if it finds the slightest possibility of lack of fair trial, it will transfer the case out of Kathua.
The bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, said the trial should be fair not only for the accused but also for the victim's family and the protection to them and their lawyers should be ensured.
During the hearing, the apex court said the real issue in the matter was to have a fair trial in the case.
The matter will be next heard on July 30.
At the outset, the Bar Council of India (BCI), filed in a sealed cover, its enquiry report related to the alleged obstruction by lawyers in the case at Kathua.
The BCI report has said that lawyers' body had neither obstructed the Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir police from filing the charge sheet in the court concerned nor the lawyers had obstructed advocate Deepika Singh Rajawat, who is representing the victim's family, from appearing in the matter before the high court there.
(With agency inputs)
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