Where 8-Year-Old Was Raped and Killed, Hindus Rally Around Suspects

Burn their village to the ground. Salt the ashes.

This article in itself is so racially/religiously charged. Very disappointing reporting by NYTimes. I expected better. No form of rape is excuseable and Kashmir is a hotbed of religious divide. Please dont generalize it and just as one muslim terrorist does not speak of the religion, one rape by a group of hindus does not speak of Hindus in general.

That is as depressing a story as I have ever read. No empathy, just hatred and denial based on a persons background and beliefs. I am not a fan of religion, but I won't blame it here. People find a reason to hate one another regardless. If not religion, it is culture or race or gender. There is no hope. Humans are often an awful species.

If this story is true, it is almost impossible to imagine. The (alleged) perpetrators can't be human, to have done what is alleged, to an 8 year old child. If convicted the perpetrators should receive the harshest penalties permitted. May her soul be blessed. (How terrible that Americans are trying to politicize this issue to have a say about immigration policy. Seems like only the anti- side is trolling the sewers though.)

The brutal sexual assault and murder of an innocent eight-year-old girl by a gang of Hindu fanatics as part of their mini pogrom to cleanse the town of Rasana of Muslims is heart wrenching. The feeble response of the Modi Government and the open support to the perpetrators of this heinous crime from the ruling party BJP’s leaders and J&K government ministers is disheartening but not surprising. Recall that Narendra Modi and his party rode to power at the center as a follow-up to the large-scale pogrom against Muslims in the state of Gujarat when Modi himself was the chief Minister there. There are many forces in various countries trying to divide the people based on religion, race, geography and caste and what the BJP and Hindu fanatics are doing in India is one of the worst examples. The BJP is finding that this strategy is effective and they are reaping big political windfalls pursuing this policy of flaming religious divide and strife. Unless we can see the humanity in all fellow human beings and move beyond the us versus them mentality these incidents will continue to happen at different magnitudes of the Richter scale.

Men. All men? No. Only men? Yes. And millions and millions of them all over the globe engaged in rape, murder, torture, stealing, displacing people, enslaving people . . .you name the heinous crime against humanity and millions of men are at it. It's strange that no one ever looks at war or mass murders or enslavement of hundreds of children and says "Hmmm . . .all men. What is the meaning and significance of that?"

The crime reported in this article is heinous & the perpetrators deserve the most severe punishment. Furthermore, given the complicated history of India, the incident is rife with communal tension. However, this article holds the entire Hindu community responsible for heinous crime. The words & tone of the article have the impact of fanning the flames of hatred in a one-sided manner rather than presenting the facts in objective manner. It quotes questionable statements without any evidence or fact-checking. `“Young people are taught that Muslims are a blot on this nation — do what you want with them,” said J. Devika` - Based on what evidence? Did the Times fact-check this? "The motive for the crime, investigators say, was nothing less than ethnic cleansing." - Again, inflammatory statements like this need to be backed up by evidence -or- presented as opinion with a counter-balancing opinion. "The talking points among the Hindu protesters ring with a certain sameness: They accuse the state government of being manipulated by Muslims. And they are demanding that the Central Bureau of Investigation, a federal agency widely seen as a tool of Mr. Modi’s party, take over the investigation from the state police" - Why is the viewpoint of Hindu protestors dismissed off-hand? "According to a recent analysis, hate crimes have risen sharply on Mr. Modi’s watch." - This links to http://www.indiaspend.com which is a virtually unknown source of questionable accuracy.

So much outrage, it's hard to know where to begin. I have to remind myself that this travesty is not representative of all Indian people. Having said that it's hard to believe otherwise as most all news coming out of India reported by the NYT is on misogyny, government corruption or poverty.

Rapes, murders, yes, the even largescale mayhem of innocent victims, happen in the US also, but I do not ever see the religion of the perpetrator or the victim dragged into the news reports. On the other hand, when a similar occurrence takes place in India, the religion of the parties are played up, often times in blaring headlines. Why so? Is it because, to begin with, the injection of sectarian issues starts in India itself? Or is there something else at play here that one cannot easily grasp? In India, the self-proclaimed secularist politicians often twist and spin every public controversy into a matter of minority, majority differences and the religious divide between them. That creates an opportunity for the self-serving political parties to fish in the troubled waters. - hoping to harvest a rich yield of religion based vote banks. Then, too, the jingoistic Indian media is happy to go along. For them, it holds the promise of increased, firmly glued audience numbers. But what explains US media's fascination or fixation on this aspect of news stories from India? I can understand that Islamist terrorists based next door in the Islamic state of Pakistan would want to fan the fires of religious skirmishes in India. But it's difficult to understand US media playing a similar role. What India needs is a unitary concept of Indianism - like we have the overarching concept of Americanism in our country - not a surfeit of religious riots.

As a Hindu, I am lost for words to describe my anguish at the blind support shown for the alleged offenders. Certainly, they are innocent until proven guilty. But this blind support has little to do with presumption of innocence and more to do with coalescing around members of the same faith. Hindu fanatics' bigotry toward Muslims further erodes any remnants of objectivity. They will never entertain the possibility that guilt is as equally possible as innocence. Unfortunately, in an era of rising nationalism and nativism - threats that engulfing many countries - purveyors of hate will skillfully try to convince the mainstream that 'their side' is always devoid of fault. Many in the mainstream are easily swayed by such propaganda, the frightening effect of which is seen in the election of a growing number of ultra-nationalist leaders - from President Trump in the West to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Mohdi in the East.

This crime is truly shocking and the perpetrators deserve full punishment under the law. It is disappointing to see how callous the headline is. The article also gives an impression that Hindus and Muslims in India are locked in conflict and a large number of Hindus supported the rapists. That is misleading and far from the reality. There is a lot of shock and anger in India currently regarding this crime and people (most of them Hindus) have registered their feelings and protests. This story takes a local event and paints an entire country with broad generalizations. This story deserved more nuanced reporting.

Death penalty is a kindness to these utterly depraved perpetrators of this crime. They need to be strung up and lynched in public. That said it is disturbing to see comments here stating 'culture of rape' in India. Culture of rape and abuse of women are more in the United States than in India. The sufferings on women and girls are worldwide and no country of religion can boast about their support of women. These atrocious behaviors are exhibited by Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others. After all it is American & Western men who travel to South Asia to rape young girls or boys. What happened here is heinous and no debate about that! This is a global problem!

I read an article from earlier in this barbaric story's timeline. At first, I wasn't going to read it in full because I expected it to be emotionally unsettling. But I felt that I had to continue to read it, to know the story and thereby in my small way honor the child who was brutalized -- not by animals, but by humans -- by men whose tribal affiliations and religion inform their ghastly world-view. What a sickening state of affairs, this suffering.

There is a problem with the title of this article, which can be easily remedied as "..., village people rally around suspects", instead of using Hindus and painting the regions billion plus Hindus as supporting the rapists. Just as problematic as saying Muslims caused 9-11 etc. Ethnic hatred and use of rape to intimidate minorities is not just endemic to India or Pakistan where the Muslim majority mete out similar fare to Hindus and other minorities, it happens everywhere, even in the developed world. The local population supports the rapists that committed this heinous crime because the perps are from the same village or community, a brother/son/nephew etc. It would have played the same way if the perps and village were Muslim and the girl Hindu and perhaps the author would have gone with "..., Muslims rally around rapists", which would also be wrong in my opinion. Even with the tribalism, the positive thing is that the law is taking its course and the perps are in police custody along with DNA evidence and will likely get stiff sentences, probably even the death penalty!

"one prominent Hindu lawyer insulted a lead investigator, saying, “She is a girl, how intelligent can she be?” Rape and Hindu chauvinism are systemic problems in India, with minimal actual effort to address the underlying causes - the caste system, religious and cultural apartheid, oppression of women (who used to be cremated alive together with their husband's body) and misogyny. I believe trade and migration rules as implemented by the West should take these issues into account.

Intimidation has no religion. ethnicity, sexual hate or racial color but rather, it has one sole purpose. . .to cement a concept of power over someone who is different from one's self. Please explain to me how the crime of 'breathing while Black' does not illustrate a feeling that unless one is Caucasian, then no rights and privileges for you as a person of color and is somehow different than the rape of this 8 year old young lady? Please explain to me, while you are at it, how extreme vetting of Muslims or killing of people of color because someone believed they were non citizens, some how advances MAGA versus the sole goal of intimidation? Yes, this criminal behavior is both hideous and heinous and further, it is immaterial what one's religion, race, color or sex, is or is not. Ugly is ugly and absolutely nothing on this planet makes it acceptable. Please NY Times, make it your business to do stories that compare animus towards various group to facilitate America to understand that their so-called American exceptionalism, has been sullied by its long standing racial, sexual, religious, ethnic hate upon which too many Americans have relied to maintain their 'cheese' so to speak.

It is beyond disgusting that these so called Hindus are supporting rapists. Problem lies with lack of enforcement of law in india. Hence everything is politicised. In fact even now, the poor dead girl is being cast as villain who taunted and tempted the chaste Hindus into committing this crime and hint darkly that she had many boy friends and hence it was ok to commit this crime. A best solution would be immediate public hanging of such rapists without delays and conviction of their supporters as aid and abetment leading to mandatory 20 year sentence. Fear is the only thing Indians respect. Instil enough fear into them by a hard crackdown on these so called nationalists who support rape and immediate publicly televised punishment of rapists by way of public hanging. You will see an immediate drop in such crimes.

As a South Asian (of the Muslim persuasion), this story has been infuriating me and giving me so much grief. First, because of how truly terrible and barbarous it is, but also because of how it perfectly illustrates how deep and perhaps permanent the scars of Partition are on the Indian Subcontinent. The word "communalism" has a special meaning in India, referring to communal violence or strife between people identified as different communities -- usually Muslims and Hindus. The thought that the common humanity between these different groups, alike in every way but faith, has been so utterly negated as to erase compassion for an 8 year old girl, raped, tortured, and murdered -- who had committed no crime beyond being of the wrong faith -- is deeply distressing. That people would go beyond that to DEFEND the perpetrators, simply because they are of the same faith, is even more so. I worry that the continual fanning of these flames of hatred and intolerance in the Subcontinent by parties with ulterior motives will ultimately have truly tragic consequences.

It is unbelievable. It is disgusting. It is inhuman. It is animalistic. Raping and murdering a child after rape is the worst crime by some animals but supporting that criminal by a large number of Hindu is unthinkable. The people in Jammu and Kashmir have been colonized and living like sub-human condition for last 70 years and the whole world is very quiet about it. In this rape and killing of a child case. Prime Minister Modi was very quiet and tried to ignore . He should be ashamed of himself. Rape is epidemic in India because good people do not speak up. To stay quiet is also crime.

These animals did this in a temple? Thank goodness our founders separated us from religion.

Part of the continuing story of how men worldwide brutalize women and girls whenever it suits them. It needs to stop EVERYWHERE.

Those who committed this crime are irredeemably evil. Apparently, so are their supporters. The government of India, with it's unwavering support for Hindu extremists, is also culpable. Hopefully the Modi government can be removed before it sponsors more crimes against humanity.

Take a good look, America, this spiraling rise in unbridled misogyny and bigotry is happening here, too.

My own granddaughters are 7 and 8. I watch them like a hawk whenever they are with me. I'm ready to go to jail to defend them if need be. It's unimaginable for me not to think of anyone's else child as not like my own and religion, 'class' whatever the hell that is, culture, race doesn't factor into the equation. Were we as humans always like this? Sadly, it looks like.

Over there they 'weaponize' the Hindu faith. Over here we 'weaponize' the Christian faith. In the Middle East they 'weaponize' Islam. What we have been witnessing over the last 10 years or so are only small skirmishes compared to what is inevitably somewhere in the near future. Groups feed the fires and fan the flames of anger all across the globe. Populations are fighting for scraps, there is not enough productive employment for millions of idle people. And we just keep on breeding out of control. You can put only so much water into a balloon before it explodes.

Rape of a child is the most heinous act. But as a Hindu, I also find the article very offensive that the reporter tried to club all Hindus as a monolithic group. Those rapist just happened to be Hindus. Rape has nothing to do with any religion. The article feels like a tourist reporting on an event without fully understanding cultural nuisances or history. It is a shame that NYT doesn’t use local reporters to report on local issues.

This isn't just about religion, politics and deep communal hatred. It's about misogyny, which exists everywhere, but in a particularly undiluted state in South Asia, in India in particular. These animals caused so much pain to a helpless little girl - pure evil, and those who defend them are shameless and complicit.

This is one of those moments in time that shine a bright light on how vile and despicable organized religion can be. The current ruling party of India promotes this religion based nationalism at every opportunity they get. It breaks my heart to see two countries I love, USA and India, in a downward spiral and are being ruled by cruel people. PS: I do have a problem with the title though. If you re-read the title as "Where 12-year-old was shot and killed by cops. Whites rally around suspects". See how it paints whites in a broad brush? Is that an acceptable title?

This is too awful to read in full. If we think this could never be us, could never happen here...The lynching of black Americans for hundreds of years was aiming for the same effect: to intimidate a group of humans your group chooses to not see as fully human. The dark side of humanity.

The rape and murder of this child is beyond ghastly. So is the denial that the crime took place. The people protesting the arrest of the men should be ashamed. Prime Miinister Modi and his government should be ashamed. Rape culture must be acknowledged and ended. The nationalist bent of Modi and his government does note promote health, peace, and prosperity of all Indians. India is an ethnically and religiously diverse nation. There is no one true Indian.

Men rape women and children the world over, but the scourge is particularly vile in India. The rampant rape of women and girls must stop!