Before the trial on Monday, Deepika Singh, the lawyer representing the family of the victim said she had been threatened with rape and death for taking up the case.
Kuldeep Singh Sengar, 50, from the ruling BJP allegedly raped the girl previous year in Unnao district.
A woman reacts at a protest against the rape of an eight-year-old girl, in Kathua, near Jammu and a teenager in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh state, in New Delhi, India April 12, 2018.
On Friday, two of those BJP members resigned as anger mounted over the rally.
"There is a lot of anger and deep sense of shame among people", filmmaker Saba Dewan, who led a massive "Not in My Name" protest gathering in Delhi on Sunday night, told CBS News. He assured the nation that "no culprit will be spared and complete justice will be done". Candlelight vigils were also held in some places.
The body of the eight-year-old girl, Asifa Bano, was found earlier this year in Kathua, in the volatile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The letter went further by blaming the BJP and likeminded right-wing Hindu groups for promoting a culture of "majoritarian belligerence and aggression" in Jammu, and in the Uttar Pradesh case it blasted the party for using feudal strongmen, who behave like gangsters, to shore up its rule.
The accused allegedly plotted the crime to drive the nomadic Muslim community from a part of Jammu, a southern region that is Hindu dominated. She was lured into the woods by her attackers, drugged, locked in a temple, gang raped for days and finally strangled.
During that period, police say she was raped repeatedly by several different men, before being murdered and dumped in a nearby forest.
Etah superintendent of police Akhilesh Chaurasia told AFP the man fled but was arrested within hours. The court requested copies of the police charges to be shared with the suspects' legal teams, and said the trial would resume on April 28. Seven of the eight pleaded not guilty to accusations of involvement in the abduction, rape and murder of the girl.
The protests that have organized in support of the accused have been led by a right-wing Hindu nationalist group called the Hindu Unity Council, which has links to Modi's BJP.
The temple's custodian, retired public servant Sanji Ram, is accused of conspiring with four police officers, a friend, his son and a juvenile nephew to kill the girl and destroy crucial evidence.
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We re willing to fight and we have got the supporters behind us. "A win on Sunday really sets the cats among the pigeons". England boss Gareth Southgate was in attendance to witness two Three Lions strikers of old take centre stage.
Monday's court appearance came as angry protests over the case spread across the country, with outrage fuelled by support for the accused initially shown by state government ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.
The suggestion that the BJP is complicit in attempting to protect the accused has not been helped by the resurfacing of a second case, this time involving a member of the party.
Singh then allegedly stood guard at the door while Sengar raped the girl, the family's initial complaint to police stated.
The politician denies the allegations.
The case ignited moral outrage and mass demonstrations across India after details of her gruesome death were made public by police last week. He died of his injuries on April 9. Gujarat is Modi's home state, where he was the Chief Minister from 2001 until he took national office in 2014.
"He will be presented before the court and charges will be pressed.", the officer added, without saying what charges he would face.
The former officials said they held no political affiliation other than to uphold the values of India's secular constitution that guarantees equal rights to all citizens.
Sengar is now in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is handling the case. The High Court has ordered that a report on the status of the investigation must be provided to the court by May 2. Some of the injuries were old.
The case shocked India, resulting in an intense period of media coverage and large nationwide protests.
In the months following her death, the central government passed numerous legislative reforms, commonly known as the Nirbhaya Act, to increase penalties for sexual violence, including extending the length of prison sentences and introducing the death penalty.
