6 men who murdered an 8-year-old girl after r-ping and torturing her for days face death penalty

Six men could face the death penalty in India after they were found guilty of r-ping and murdering an eight-year-old girl, in a case which sparked outrage across the country.



The Muslim girl, Asifa Bano, was drugged, held captive in a Hindu temple and sexually assaulted for a week before being strangled and battered to death with a stone in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The attackers - who included two police officers - will receive life imprisonment at minimum and may be handed death sentences.

One of them, Sanji Ram, was a retired public servant and a custodian of the temple where the girl was attacked.

A seventh man was acquitted, while an eighth person, who was underage, faces a separate trial.

According to the charge sheet, the girl was abducted from her Muslim nomadic tribe in January 2018.

Bano was grazing her family's ponies in the forests of the Himalayan foothills when she was kidnapped.

Her r-ped and mutilated body was found in the woods a week later.

Forensic reports found that she had been drugged with anti-anxiety medication, repeatedly raped, burned, bludgeoned with a rock and strangled.