By Javed Iqbal
Thomson Reuters Foundation ranks India on top of the list entitled “World’s most dangerous countries for women”:
India topped the list of most dangerous countries for women in 2022, according to Thomson Reuters Foundation. Almost 70% of Indian women are victims of violence, which includes rape, marital rapes, sexual assault and harassment, cultural and traditional practises, and human trafficking, which includes forced labour, sex slavery, and domestic servitude. India, the second-largest country in the world by population, has emerged as the most dangerous place for women over the past seven years, since 2018. In this article, my main focus is on the poor plight of (IOK) Kashmiri women and girls at the hands of the Indian Army. Approximately,12,121 Kashmiri women have suffered abuse and rape at the hands of Indian soldiers between 1989 and 2022. A total of 23 thousand 234 people have lost their spouses, and thousands of women are living as semi-widows because their husbands have disappeared without being located.
What is the viewpoint of South Asian Wire? Why Indian forces commit rapes on large-scale in IOK?
An independent and public spirited media reporter “South Asian Wire” maintains that Indian forces have used gunshots and pellet guns to harm hundreds of Kashmiri youths and male and female students since the execution of Kashmiri youth Burhan Wani on July 8, 2016. At least 70 kids, including Insha Mushtaq and Afra Shakoor, have lost their sight as a result of the injuries. While 32-year-old Nusrat Jan’s vision and that of infant Haba Nisar, who is 18 months old, were both partially impaired. Last year, many cases of violence and sexual harassment of women were reported from all over the world.
According to South Asian Wire, a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters Foundation said that rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence are the most common cases of girls in India on which protest for women’s rights has been going on since 2012. Even today, Kashmiri women are in a state of intense fear. And, they await justice from the contractors of world peace. The report further states that the majority of Kashmiris suffering from mental illnesses are women. Whose loved ones and relatives are missing.
Several women have also lost their dignity as a result of the Kashmir conflict, which has eaten the innocent lives of thousands of Kashmiris. Late in the 1980s, a fresh era of violations of human rights started, and it is still going strong now. Moreover, over a thousand women have suffered martyrdom during this time.
Women in Kashmir are being terrorised and raped by occupying Indian security personnel. The Occupied Valley has a pattern of rape where troops will kill or remove men from homes before raping the women. Because of worries about repression, punishment, and stigmatization by the Indian government, such incidents go unreported. Additionally, the Indian government’s implementation of “black laws” in occupied Kashmir protects the occupying forces’ crimes, which has made Kashmiris’ suffering even worse.
Sexual violence in IOK and terrible situation of Kashmiris:
Messing with the dignity of Kashmiri women is not simply a personal offense committed by an Indian army commander out of lust; it is also a form of state terrorism employed to stifle the Kashmiri independence struggle. In front of their eyes, their husbands, brothers, and sons are ruthlessly slain. Similar to this, males are compelled to rape their partners in public. Intense psychological anguish is inflicted on Kashmiri men and women through this wound. India has used rape of women as a war tactic to suppress Kashmiris’ demand for independence. A procession was stopped by the Indian Army near Shal Teng in Srinagar and the bride was taken out of the vehicle and taken to a nearby military picket and raped. Similarly, there are more cases of rape of brides by stopping the procession on the way, which proves that India is using the worst act of rape against Kashmiris as a war tactic in the style of fanaticism under a well-thought-out plan. There have been thousands of incidents of rape of Kashmiri women by Indian forces in Occupied Kashmir, including many incidents of gang rape.
According to Human Rights Watch, Indian soldiers, after encircling urban areas and villages, take men out of their homes and collect them in one place, and then, under the pretext of searching, vandalize the houses are and rape women. In most of the cases, the girls who are the victims of the rape of women hide the incidents of rape by the Indian soldiers for fear of their lives. And, if cover-ups are included, the number of recorded rape cases more than doubles.
Security forces use rape as a weapon to punish, intimidate, and humiliate communities during counterinsurgency operations: Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch says security forces use rape as a weapon to punish, intimidate, and humiliate communities during counterinsurgency operations. India is openly violating the provisions governing sexual violence under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL) in Occupied Kashmir. While the Indian government has ratified the Geneva Conventions of 1949, common Article 3 prohibits the killing, torture and ill-treatment of non-combatants by both the government and militant forces. Geneva Convention IV Article 27 states, “Women shall enjoy special protection against any attack on their dignity, in particular rape, forced prostitution, or any indecent assault”. Additional Protocol II of 1977 outlaws “outrages on personal dignity, especially humiliating treatment, rape, forced prostitution, and indecent assaults of any kind.”
In October 1992, representatives of Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) visited Occupied Kashmir to investigate incidents of rape and other human rights violations and violations of Indian laws of war. Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights stated in their investigative reports that rape of women by Indian soldiers is common in Occupied Kashmir. During Indian military crackdowns, sieges and search operations, men are rounded up in parks for identification and brutally beaten one by one. While the women in the houses are subjected to rape. According to them, Indian soldiers commit rape as a tactic to punish Kashmiris and humiliate them. After the siege of the local population, the Indian army accuses the local people of helping and supporting the Kashmiri freedom fighters and freely commits all kinds of actions against them, including killing, rape and vandalizing their houses. And, there is no fear.
According to a report by a local human rights organization, Indian forces raped about 11,224 women between 1989 and 2020. Among them were women under 11 years of age and 60 years of age. The Indian government has implemented many inhuman black laws in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. And, under one such law (AFSPA), the Indian forces in Occupied Kashmir have complete immunity from any disciplinary action in all kinds of operations, including killings and violence against Kashmiris. A large number of incidents of rape by Indian soldiers are on record in Occupied Kashmir. In May 1990, a young bride was detained and raped by the Indian Border Force (BSF) while she was on her way to her husband’s house with a procession after her leave. On the spot, the bride’s aunt was also raped by Indian soldiers. On this occasion, Indian soldiers opened fire on the bus, killing and injuring a few Kashmiris.
The Kunan Poshpora Incident: Who wrote the book “Kiya Apko Kunan Poshpora Yaad Hai”?
In Kashmir’s history, the Kunan Poshpora holds a sad memory that cannot be erased. At 11 o’clock at night, the Indian army arrived in Kunan Poshpora, encircled the two villages, and ordered all the males to leave their homes from the mosques. Ladies remained at home alone. The males were slaughtered and subjected to physical torture, and those who had some remains were tied to trees. Later, the inebriated Indian animals broke into the homes and collectively humiliated over 100 ladies, ranging in age from 8-year-old girls to 80-year-olds. Despite this horrific catastrophe occurring, nobody was aware of it. The world was reportedly hard to access, and independent courts and investigative organizations did not exist.
Eventually, five students from Kashmir, Isar Batul, Afrabat, Samrina Mushtaq, Manza Rasheed, and Natasha Rather made the world aware of cross cruelty and brutality by writing a book called “Kiya Apko Kunan Poshpora Yaad Hai”?
The situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir has garnered the attention of international human rights organizations. The Kashmiri people will always remember this book as a fond memory. The book draws heavily on primary and secondary sources, images, correspondence, and many other primary sources.
It is mentioned in the book that Abdul Ghani Constable who was an eye witness of this whole incident and also a resident of this village, in 1993, the Indian Army brutally killed him. His crime was that he had lifted a child from the snow, which the soldiers had snatched from the mother’s lap and thrown into the snow outside the house to light the fire of lust. These courageous Kashmiri women have not only written a book but have also pounded on doors in an effort to apprehend the offenders. Al-Qamar Online reports that these ladies, under the guidance of attorney and human rights advocate Pervez Imrooz, filed a PIL writ in the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir in 2013. After that, the army used big tactics and also set off explosions in Kannan and Pushpora so that these people would withdraw the case out of fear, but it did not happen. After a long and difficult process, in 2014, the Kashmir High Court issued orders to compensate the victims. A local court has ordered an identification parade of the accused, which is yet to be implemented. The state government initially said it accepted the decision, but the decision was later challenged in the Supreme Court of India, where the case is still pending. According to independent sources, the number of girls and women who have been raped by Indian soldiers in the villages of Kunan Poshpora is more than two hundred. The people of Kannan and Pushpura are still in a state of shock even after more than thirty years have passed. The United States Department of State stated in its 1992 report on international human rights that there was credible evidence to support allegations of gang rape against an army unit at Kunan Poshpora.
Why has the number of mentally disturbed Kashmiri patients escalated from 10% in 1990 to 60-70% now?
Meanwhile, at the 52nd United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Professor William Baker testified that rape in Kashmir was not simply a case of isolated incidents involving unarmed soldiers, but that the occupying security forces’ rape of the Kashmiri population was gruesome and active. In Occupied Kashmir, the number of mental stress-related patients was 10% in 1990, which has now reached 60-70%. Widows are also carrying the burden of their slain husbands as it has become impossible for them to earn employment for themselves and their children in the presence of more than eight lakh Indian troops.
Thousands of Kashmiri girls have been injured by the use of bullets and pellet guns by the Indian forces.
Health and education facilities are not available to orphans. For the last seven decades, Kashmiri women have been making sacrifices for peace and basic rights in their homeland. Despite persecution, crackdown, fake encounters, disappearances, atrocities and killings, Kashmiri women are standing with firm determination.
During the last 35 years, more than one lakh Kashmiris were martyred by Indian forces and the number of Indian soldiers killed by Kashmiri freedom fighters is also in thousands. Despite the use of all kinds of oppression and suppression by the army against the Kashmiris, India has failed to overcome the determination of the Kashmiris for independence. But, let me know, from these background cases till yet, who should step up and exert pressure on India to uphold civil freedoms, human rights, and applicable laws for the combat zone?
