Srinagar, Jan 30: Another shepherd’s daughter has been missing in Hiranagar, Kathua, where an 8-year-old girl was abducted, allegedly raped, and murdered earlier this month.
Sheefa, 19, resident of Jangi Chak, Hiranagar, has been missing since January 19.
District Police Headquarters Kathua on Tuesday published a lookout notice, asking for any information about the girl.
Married, Sheefa was at her parent’s home when she had gone to fetch water, police says.
Her father, Ali Hussain, the lookout notice says, filed a missing report at the Police Station concerned on January 23.
The girl, police says, was clad in black salwar kameez.
Sheefa’s brother, Shamdin, told The Kashmir Monitor over phone that they searched for her everywhere, but in vain.
“We finally reported it to the police,” he says.
Sub-Inspector Shambhudutt Sharma, investigating officer in the case, says the girl had gone missing at around 3 pm on the fateful day.
He, however, said her mobile phone’s location was active in nearby areas until around 9 pm that day.
“After then, it (the phone) went off,” the officer says.
According to him, the girl, keeping in with the tradition, was yet to go to her husband’s house in Samba after their nikah a year ago.
“We have come to know that the girl had received some calls from a few phone numbers from Punjab. We will get the details of those numbers by today evening and know in whose name and address they are registered,” he says.
“This seems a case of her eloping or being forcibly taken by someone she knew.”
The SSP Kathua, Suleman Choudhary, says the district police was “on the job”.
Earlier, the incident of Asifa, the ‘rape’ and murder victim from Rassana village whose body was spotted by a shepherd in the bushes, garnered debate on social media and in the legislative Assembly.
The local Bakerwal community and some social activists have been vehemently protesting against it, while the case has gone from police to the Crime Branch.
Apart from the arrest of a suspect, whom police claims to be a minor, no other substantial development in the case has come to surface.
On Tuesday, Bakerwal community and a few social activists again protested in Jammu for speedy action in the case.
