M. S Haidri
Muzaffarabad: Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir appealed the international organisations to stand with the victims of Kunnan Poshpora victims who still seek jutsice.
In a statement issued here on Friday, head of Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir women wing Mehnaz Qureshi has said that India forces always used sexual assault and violence against Kashmir as a weapon of war.
She said that sexual assaults on Kashmiri women on February 23, 1991 in Kunnan Poshpora is slap on the face of India’s so-called democracy and secularism.
While explaining the lack of action against Indian soldiers involved in this terrible attack, Mehnaz said that on this day in 1991, tragedy that took place is one of the worst incidents in the history of Kashmir.
“Indian soldiers besieged the two villages of Kunnan and Poshpora in Kupwara district late at night, the men were taken out of their homes and held hostage at gunpoint, soldiers entered the homes of civilians where around 52 Kashmiri women were sexually assaulted” she maintained.
Qureshi said that despite hearing condemnation from the whole world on this horrible incident, Indian rulers and biased judiciary did not take any action against those guilty soldiers.
Mehnaz lamented that the same crime was done with Nilofar, Asia in Shopian and Asifa of Kathua, but the bigoted rulers of India have not even condemned these incidents.
She said that the Indian Army is using sexual assaults, torture, and search operations on women in the occupied state as weapons of war.
“The data discovered through local sources reveal that Indian soldiers have raped 11,500 Kashmiri women till date, 24000 Kashmiri women have been made widows, while around 2700 Kashmiri women have been forced to live a life of semi-widows, whose husbands are not confirmed to be alive or martyred”, she added.
She further said that Indian soldiers have martyred more than 2000 women during the freedom movement.
Qureshi said that the time has come for the world to take notice of all the atrocities committed by Indian soldiers on Kashmiri women, especially the officers involved in the attacks on the women of Kunnan and Poshpora, and bring them to justice.
She also paid tribute to the courage and bravery of Kashmiri women who are playing an eternal role in the freedom movement.
She called the bravery of Syeda Asia Andrabi, Fahmida Sufi, Naheeda Nasreen, Naseema Akhtar and other women imprisoned in Indian jails as an important part of the history who are suffering imprisonments in notorious Indian jails for their legitimate struggle of right to self-determination as promisef by United Nations Security Council.
