Panaji, Apr 19 (IANS): The governments in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh are protecting rapists and denying justice to rape victims and their families in the Kathua and Unnao cases, the Council for Social Justice and Peace, a wing of Goa's influential Roman Catholic Church, said on Wednesday.

"The growing trend in the country to justify crimes committed against certain sections of the society by using the garb of nationalism has generated fear and insecurity among the citizens of this country.

"The shameless and audacious attempts from officers of the court to prevent the filing of the charge sheet and to disrupt the functioning of courts in order to protect the accused rapists poses a grave threat to the sanctity of democratic institutions in this country," the Council's executive secretary Fr. Savio Fernandes said in a statement issued here.

The Council, is the social wing of the Roman Catholic Church in Goa, which is the religious and spiritual guide of Catholics in the coastal state, who account for more than a quarter of the population.

"The CSJP is deeply agonized over the horrendous rapes of an 8 year-old-girl in Kathua and another girl in Unnao and the subsequent rapes in the country over the last few days, which appear to have the tacit corroboration of the concerned governments in protecting the rapists and denying justice to the rape victims and their families," the statement also said, while also appealing for a more "humane and civilised response to the crisis".