India: Protesters demand justice for raped and murdered 8-year-old Asifa

Protesters gathered in the Indian-controlled Kashmiri city of Srinagar to decry the brutal gang rape and murder of eight-year-old Muslim nomad Asifa Bano, and to demand the perpetrators be brought to justice.

Kashmiri students hold placard during a protest calling for justice following the recent rape and murder case of an eight-year-old girl. (AFP)

Protesters marched through the town with placards and banners, chanting their demands for justice, before carrying out a candlelit vigil. One student protester stated, "We the students are not going to tolerate this anymore. We want justice for Asifa and that's it, it is justice for every female in the country." Similar protests were held throughout the country.

Reports indicate Bano was abducted from a field near her home in January, and was taken to a prayer hall where she was sedated and brutally gang raped for three days. She was finally strangled and hit on the head with a stone, and her body was found a week after her disappearance in a nearby forest.

The case has caused outrage across a religiously divided Indian region. The arrested men all belong to a Hindu community which has been tied up in a land dispute with Bano's Muslim nomadic community.