‘No Love angle, no abduction’: Police say elder sister killed teenager 'with rod' in Ganderbal

August 19, 2025 by News Desk

Rayees Shah/ Shah Basit

There were rumours among Kashmir’s social media crowd, and even spread by journalistic circles, that the murder in Ganderbal had a love angle and a boy was involved in the crime that shook Kashmir. But officials have categorically denied such claims, calling them “false rumours,” and said the teenage girl alone was responsible for murdering her 14-year-old sister.

Addressing a press conference in Ganderbal on Tuesday, Police said they have arrested a teenage girl for alleged murder, a killing that has stunned the local community and sparked protests in the village.

The victim’s body was discovered near her home on Sunday morning. In the immediate aftermath, speculation spread quickly across social media platforms and even in journalistic circles, with claims of abduction and suggestions that a boy was involved. Police have firmly dismissed these reports. “There is only one individual arrested. It was a case of high temperament, nothing else,” SSP Ganderbal said. Another senior officer was categorical. “There is no love angle in this case. Such rumours are baseless and damaging, and they trivialise the seriousness of the crime.”

The elder sister had earlier told the police that the morning began like any other. Around 10:15 a.m. on August 17, she and her 14-year-old sibling stepped out of their home in Mirzapura, Sehpora, Ganderbal, to gather vegetables from nearby fields, barely 300 meters away. But what should have been a simple errand turned into a nightmare.

According to her statement, a car suddenly pulled up beside them. Three men got out, and in a matter of moments the sisters were dragged and attacked. The elder girl had claimed that one of the men struck her younger sister so brutally that she collapsed on the roadside, her small body bleeding and still. Injured herself, she somehow managed to break free and run home screaming, her cries shattering the silence of the village.

Investigations revealed that the sisters had actually stepped out to look for their mother’s lost wristwatch when an argument broke out.

The quarrel escalated into a fight, during which the elder sister struck the younger one with a wooden rod. Forensic teams later confirmed that hair clutched in the victim’s hands matched that of the accused. Police also recovered blood-stained clothes from a cousin’s house, where the girl had changed after the incident. “She admitted during interrogation that after realising her sister was still breathing, she struck her again and then hid the weapon in a nearby field,” an investigating officer said.

The accused has been booked under Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Police say no further arrests are expected in the case. “The story about men in a car was concocted. Nothing as such happened,” the SSP added.

Residents of Sehpora said the brutality inside a family had shaken their faith in the village’s safety. “We never imagined such a thing could happen here,” said Mushtaq Ahmad, a neighbour. “Crimes like this are alien to us, but sadly, they are no longer alien to Kashmir,” he told The Kashmiriyat.

The incident comes at a time when violent crime in Jammu Kashmir has been steadily climbing. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), over 3,300 cases of violent crimes, including murders, assaults, and sexual offences, were registered in the region in 2022, a nearly 15% rise compared to 2020.

In Srinagar and adjoining districts alone, police recorded hundreds of cases of assault and domestic violence in the past two years. Officials and civil society activists say the spike reflects growing anger and intolerance in society, visible both online and on the ground.

The case also comes at a time when courts have expressed alarm at the role of rumours in shaping narratives around violent crimes. Only last month, the Supreme Court, while hearing a case on media trials, warned against “reckless speculation and sensationalism” that can stigmatize families and derail investigations.

The bench stressed that circulating unverified claims, often about supposed love affairs, “does irreparable damage to both the victim and the accused before the truth emerges.”

In recent months, Kashmir has witnessed incidents ranging from knife attacks to domestic abuse cases ending in death. For many, the Ganderbal killing is not an isolated family tragedy but part of a larger trend of fraying social fabric. As one resident put it: “If sisters can turn on each other with such violence, what does that say about what we are becoming?”

What worries people further is the way these crimes are consumed and discarded in the age of social media. Each brutal case sparks a few hours of outrage online, only to be buried under the next controversy. Kashmir’s social media is a mirror of its growing intolerance, Ayesha, a Ganderbal based lawyer believes. “Every differing opinion is cancelled right away and people even killed for differing opinions,” said Ayesha. “There is no tolerance anymore, people can go to any extent to defame, delegitimize you and in the process even get you killed,,” she said.

“Now in Kashmir, Everything, including cries is reduced to engagement, chatter, hashtags, and judgments. The moment someone tries to question why such violence is happening in Kashmir, they are shouted down, trolled, or cancelled. Real pain is being drowned in noise.”