Swarajya inquired with the immediate neighbour of Sanji Ram, Dharampal Sharma. He said he was out of Jammu at that time but got to know about the transformer bit because his refrigerator suffered damage.

Villagers believe the bikers had thrown the body at the site themselves.

The Conspiracy - 2: How did they know about Sanji Ram’s involvement on 17 January itself?

The girl’s body was sent to Kathua district hospital for autopsy on the afternoon of 17 January . Villagers say that activist-lawyer Talib Hussain was also present. How did he reach Kathua from "his hometown Poonch in a matter of hours", the villagers ask.

"Hussain appeared out of nowhere and even accompanied the Bakarwals when they went to Kathua hospital for autopsy around 12 pm. Was he already here In Kathua? Why?" asks one Radhakrishna, a relative of the accused Mannu. Rasana residents say it was Hussain as well as two Bakarwal brothers, sons of one Mohammad Jaan, who first took Sanji's name at the protest that was launched in the evening of 17th. “How did they know about Sanji Ram when no one had any clue that day who killed the girl? We saw Hussain for the first time that day. Neither he knows us nor we know about him,” quips a local resident.

We talked to many residents of Kootah and Rasana village and all confirmed that Sanji Ram’s name was indeed taken on 17th itself.

"By noon on 17 January, the Bakarwals had kept the dead body on a charpoy at the Kootah Mod (junction). It was a gathering of more than fifty people, mostly Bakarwals but also some Kashmiri Muslims. I saw Talib Hussain and heard him name Sanji and "Sanji ke ladke" (Sanji's sons) as accused," says a Kootah resident who requested to remain anonymous. This resident said he had known Yusuf for long and had gone there to express condolences to Yusuf. He also said that it was the first time he learnt about Yusuf's daughter even though he had seen his two sons going to school.

How come Hussain named the accused even before the formal investigation started?

The eye witness in Kootah further said that on Chauta (fourth day of the death marked by the Bakarwal community that fell on 21 January), there was again a congregation, this time much bigger and "comprising of a lot of Kashmiri Muslims". "This time, names of Sanji, his son Vishal and constable Deepak were taken on a loudspeaker," he told Swarajya.

The Motive

Though establishing motive behind a crime is not central to getting a conviction, it is nonetheless very important. The charge sheet clearly says that Sanji Ram carried out the conspiracy and his motive behind abducting and killing the girl was to dislodge the Bakarwals from the area. It mentions that Sanji Ram had been beaten up by the Bakarwals and wanted to take revenge. However, the villagers doubt if such an incident took place and if the Bakarwals indeed had the gumption to beat up someone from the majority community on whom they depended for housing for their family and pasture for their cattle.

The charge sheet says Sanji Ram had started a campaign against one Harnam Singh of Kootah, who had sold land to Bakarwals. But Singh vehemently denies this. He told Swarajya that “Sanji Ram never ran such a campaign. We never had any enmity”. Another resident of the village, Balbir Singh, who had sold land to the girl's father Yusuf on the outskirts of Rasana in 2007, told Swarajya that Sanji Ram never campaigned against him either.

Maligning The Other - 1: Bakarwals

The residents of Rasana village told us that on 17 January, hundreds of Bakarwals with many Kashmiri Muslims in their caravan carried out a protest march in the evening and they banged their doors with lathis while passing by their houses. This instilled fear in them. After their march, angry Bakarwals staged a demonstration with the dead body at the junction of the adjoining Kootah village, where they raised 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans.

A Kootah resident who was at the site contests the charge. "Someone had written 'Pakistan Zindabad' on a wall, but I would say it was mischief. I did not hear any such slogans,” he told us. This resident was all praise for Yusuf and Bakarwals who, he said, were very peaceful people and didn’t bother anyone. “They live in the jungle, up in the hills, on the outskirts of the village. Our relations are very good. We never had any issues with them,” he says.

Maligning The Other - 2: The Hindu Ekta Manch, All Dogras And The Entire Hindu Community

Rasana villagers say that when the Crime Branch began to randomly pick up people in January, leaders from all political parties and activists came together to form the Hindu Ekta Manch. "It's just a group of people. It's not a registered organisation," said Ankur Sharma.