*SRINAGAR- The Muslim nomads who lead their goats, cows and horses up anddown the Kashmir hills have never felt at ease in modern India and thegruesome rape and murder of a girl from the impoverished community hasheightened their fears, reported AFP.*

Many of the Bakarwals speeded up their annual migration out of theHindu-majority Jammu region because of the national storm of controversycreated by the killing of the eight-year-old girl.

Police say a group in the Hindu dominated village of Rasana tortured andkilled the girl in a bid to scare the Bakarwals out of the districtdefinitively. The nomads are now the talk of India.

“The Hindus do not want the Bakarwals in this region,” said Gulam Mohammad,one of the patriarchs of the million-strong community, sat in a temporarycamp among eucalyptus trees off a highway leading to the plains.

“There is something in their hearts against Muslims,” the 74-year-old added.

The Bakarwals have followed with horror the accounts of the sufferinginflicted on the girl. “A lot of us were traumatised,” said Mohammad, whofound out about the crime by listening to his old transistor radio.

“We have daughters here with us. We sleep badly at night because we set upcamp on the roadside and we are worried that someone could come.”

With trucks passing dangerously close, the Bakarwals lead their herds onthe main highway up to the Kashmir plains that has been their summer homefor centuries.

The murder of the girl, whose name cannot be used for legal reasons, isjust the latest sign of hostility, according to the Bakarwals.

But it has brought the animosity out into the open as the rape has become ahighly charged controversy for the government.

Eight men are facing trial. Police say the girl was drugged, held in aHindu temple for five days, repeatedly raped and killed. Her body wasdumped in a forest.

*Barbed wire welcome*

At the Bakarwal camp, Reshna Bibi held her 10-year-old granddaughter,Shamima, close to her body. “The victim was only this big,” she said.

The Bakarwals make up about 10 percent of the 12.5 million population ofJammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. But the Jammu regionis mainly Hindu.

The Bakarwals bring their animals down from the Kashmir plains into Jammuin September and October to avoid the tough winter and return again thefollowing spring.

Several of the nomads told *AFP* about conflicts with the local Hinducommunities, particularly over the use of land where they set up theirtents for the winter.

Population growth and road construction has made it increasingly difficultfor the Bakarwals to maintain their lifestyle. Few own land.

They say local governments harass them by evicting them from land andputting barbed wire around forests that they have used for camps.

The Bakarwal life is already one of deep poverty. Most of their tents areplastic sheets strung up between trees. Amongst old pots and pans strewnaround the ground for upcoming meals, goats look for grass and childrenplay.

Mohammad said he left Jammu three days earlier and still has two weeks ofwalking with his cattle before reaching the main Kashmir city of Srinagar,130 kilometers (80 miles) away.

“Being a nomad is not a life, there is nowhere for us,” said Reshna Bibi,55, as she watched modern cars speed by on the highway.

Further up the road, Ali Mohammad and his family have been waiting for sixdays on waste land after their animals fell ill.

He wants his children to learn to read, go to school and get identitypapers.

“This has got to stop,” he said, referring to the cycle of poverty andprejudice afflicting the Bakarwal.