NEW DELHI: A court on Monday sentenced the three prime accused to life imprisonment and sent the other three convicts to 5 years in jail in the Kathua rape and murder case.

District and session judge Pathankot Tejwinder Singh awarded life sentence to Sanjhi Ram, Deepak Khajuria and Parvesh Kumar after holding them guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 376D (gang rape) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of Ranbir Penal Code (RPC). The three have also been sentenced to 25 years in jail over charges of gang rape and fined Rs 1 lakh each.

The other three accused, Anand Dutta, Tilak Raj and Surender Verma, who were held guilty under section 201 (destruction of evidence) of RPC, have been sentenced to five-year imprisonment.

Earlier today, a local court in Pathankot had convicted the six accused in the case.

The seventh accused, Vishal Jangotra, was acquitted of all charges. Counsel for the accused SK Sawney said that they would file an appeal against the conviction before the Punjab and Haryana high court.

An 8-year-old nomad girl from J&K's Kathua was kidnapped, sedated and gang-raped by the convicts before being bludgeoned to death.

According to the chargesheet, the girl was used as a pawn to drive out the Bakherwal Muslim (Gujjar- Bakherwal) nomads from the Kathua area of Jammu region.

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In Video: Kathua rape case: Six out of seven accused held guilty by court, 1 acquitted