SC to hear plea claiming Talib Hussain, key witness in Kathua rape case, is being tortured by Jammu and Kashmir Police

The Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear a plea alleging that Talib Hussain, a key witness in the Kathua gang rape and murder case, is being tortured by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in an unrelated rape case.

ANI reported that the petitioner claimed that Hussain was picked up by the police when he was helping a family member of the accused in the case. There is allegedly no information regarding his whereabouts.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee considered the submission of a close relative of Hussain, seeking urgent hearing on the plea.

A habeas corpus writ petition has been filed by the cousin of the witness. It alleges that Hussain has been kept in illegal detention and being subjected to custodial torture.

Hussain’s family alleged that he is being tortured in police custody in a fake rape case.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, counsel for the petitioner, later said Hussain has been subjected to torture in Sambha in the state and they are seeking “judicial intervention” in the matter.

The apex court has transferred the trial in the Kathua gang rape and murder case to Pathankot after taking note of the plea of the father of the victim apprehending a threat to the family.

Hussain is a key witness in the Kathua gang rape case, in which an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community disappeared from near her home in a village close to Kathua in the Jammu region on 10 January. Her body was found in the same area a week later.

The state police’s Crime Branch, which probed the case, filed the main chargesheet against seven persons and a separate chargesheet against a juvenile in a court in Kathua district. The chargesheet has revealed chilling details about how the girl was allegedly kidnapped, drugged and raped inside a place of worship before being killed.

With inputs from PTI