Srinagar _ Agencies
Indian police said Wednesday that a 9-year-old girl had been raped by her half-brother and friends at the instigation of her stepmother in India-controlled Kashmir.
The baby´s eyes were uprooted and her body burned with sour material before being dumped in a forest near her house in the URI area last week.
The body of the child was found last Saturday. The wife of the victim´s father, her half-brother (14 years) and three others were arrested, police said.
"A terrifying story of the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in the URI region by her half-brother at the instigation of her stepmother," said police chief SS Fayed.
Imtiaz Hussain, a police official, said the investigation revealed that the motive for the crime was jealousy and retaliation.
The investigation concluded that the wife of the August had hated her second husband´s wife and children.
The wife of the August said during the investigation that she felt that her husband spends more time with his second wife, and that his child (9 years) was closest to him among all his sons.
The Indian Government had recently ratified the tightening of penalties for crimes of sexual violence against children, including the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls under 12 years old.
