Asifa Bano's Brutal Fate: The Horror of Rape and Murder Under the Umbrella of Hinduism

A small village in the Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, India, where 8-year-old Asifa Banu was kept inside a temple and gang-raped for eight days. This brutal torture resulted in her genital mutilation, and she was finally brutally killed by strangulation and headbutting.

During preliminary interrogation, the temple panda Sanjiram admitted that Asifa was given sleeping pills and left in the storeroom every day during temple work. After the work was done, Sanjiram and his accomplices would rape Asifa while she was unconscious when the temple work was over.

After the news of this brutal incident came to light, calls for justice were raised from different parts of India. But, Hindutva stood in the way of seeking this justice. They took out a rally in defense of the rapists, led by two BJP leaders Chandra Prakash Ganga and Chowdhury Lal Singh.

On the other hand, when the news of Asifa's gang-rape and murder got widespread media coverage, Asifa's name started trending at the top of Indian porn sites. Millions of people then searched for Asifa's rape videos on porn sites, revealing the deep malaise of Indian society.

But the rapists did not stop here. Sanjiram's nephew called a friend of his in Uttar Pradesh to rape Asifa, adding to the level of heinousness of the incident.

Despite this brutality, a section of the media and society in India has failed to highlight the true horror of the incident. For helpless children like Asifa, this silence of the society is the worst failure. Which proves that not only the law but also the consciousness and morals of the society need revival.

While Asifa's case was being covered up, a young woman stood on a protest platform holding a banner — "Am I Next?" This is the reality that makes our society question, where are we going?

Do we have no justice for victims like Asifa Bano? If we do not find answers to these questions, such phenomena will continue to increase around us.