Over a hundred writers, artists, theatre practitioners, musicians and academics from Australia have signed a protest letter expressing sorrow and anger over the murder and alleged rape of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district. The letter, addressed to India’s High Commissioner in Australia AM Gondane, was delivered by hand to the consulate generals of India in Sydney and Melbourne on Monday.

“Through this letter we express our anger, distress, and mute hopelessness at the unjustifiable delay and cover-ups in the investigations to bring justice for a minor from the Muslim Bakerwal nomadic tribe,” the letter read. It said the murder and alleged rape was not just a sexually-based crime but part of a campaign of “deep hatred and ongoing discrimination against Muslims and other minorities in the Hindu-majority government”.

“We are equally outraged at the protection being provided to the accused, who belong to the Hindu community in Jammu and Kashmir, and whose members conspired to commit this horrific crime,” the letter added.

It alleged that the Kathua incident is one of many heinous crimes committed against minorities since the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in 2014. “The abuse of women and minors as fodder in these hate crimes, of using rape as a weapon of war against its own citizens, of engaging in overt and covert intimidation against those who dare to speak out, is the all-too-common face of the dastardly campaigns that seek to obliterate the existence of, and engage in a sustained drive against, Muslims and other minorities,” the letter said.

The letter described the signatories as “a group of writers, art-practitioners, academics, and media professionals in Australia who are closely connected to India.” The group said it was concerned about Indian and Australian democracies, and bilateral relations, which it alleged had been damaged by the incidents of violence against minorities in India.

“We are appalled, outraged and ashamed at the way gender oppression is appropriated, torture on minority groups are justified, and interventions into people’s daily lives, food habits and cultural practices are being committed with impunity in the name of Hinduism under the aegis of the ruling BJP under Modi,” the letter said.

It concluded by calling for “zero tolerance” after the Kathua case, and urged the Modi government to provide justice to victims of sexual violence and compensation to their families. The signatories called upon the government to “restore the faith of citizens and the international community in Indian democracy by bringing the perpetrators to justice immediately”.