On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Kashmiri women in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir continue to bear endless suffering, state terrorism, fear and agony under India’s military occupation and political injustice since 1947.
A report released by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service today, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, said that Indian forces personnel, including army, paramilitary, police and agencies, have martyred 2,356 women and molested 11,269 due to the unabated acts of state terrorism by Indian forces during the last 37 years. Indian forces having impunity under draconian laws to imprison Kashmiris for voicing their just demand of right to plebiscite.
The report said that Kashmiri women have been the worst victims of the harrowing conflict, which has rendered 22,991 women widowed since 1989. The report pointed out that Indian forces were using rape and molestation of women as a weapon of war in IIOJK to suppress the Kashmiris’ just demand for the right to self-determination acknowledged by the United Nations.
The report said over three dozen women, including Hurriyat leader Aasiya Andrabi, Nahida Nasreen, Fehmeeda Sofi, Sobia Aziz, Sheema Shafi Waza, Shaista Maqbool, Shams Begam, Zaytun Akhtar, Rubeena Nazir, Suraya Rashid Wani, Shakeela, Saima Bashir Mir, Mudifa Iqbal, Rashida Salam Din, Safeeqa Begum, Sarda Begum, Munira Begum, Ishrat Rasool, Nigeena Manzoor Lone, Aafreena alias Aayat Ganie, Afroza Begum, Shabroza Bano Barkati, Saleema Begum, Gulshan Naaz, Talib Shah, Dewan Bagh, Nusrat Jan, Farhat Begum, Halima Bashir, Nargis Bhat, Aashiya Bano, Nigeena, Munira Begum, Parveen Akhtar, Maryama Begum Shafeeq, Shameema Begum, Uzma Wasim, Saleema Bibi and Shahzada Akhtar, are under illegal detention in New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail and other prisons in India and IIOJK on fake cases.
Indian forces are routinely weaponizing sexual harassment to humiliate, silence and collectively punish Kashmiris for their political demand for a plebiscite, which is clearly a deliberate tool of war to crush the Kashmiris’ stand.
The report said Kashmiri women are tormented by enforced disappearances of their sons, husbands and brothers — living in constant anguish without answers. It is now time for international action to protect Kashmiri women from India’s state-sponsored barbarity and ensure justice long denied to the oppressed people of occupied Kashmir.
The report pointed out that India is using rape of women as a weapon of war in IIOJK to humiliate the Kashmiris, and the Kunanposhpora Kupwara mass rape, Shopian double rape and murder, and Kathua rape and murder incidents are its glaring examples. Around a hundred women were gang-raped and molested by Indian forces during a cordon and search operation in Kunanposhpora area of Kupwara district on the night of February 23, 1991.
Two women, Aasiya and Neelofar of Shopian, were abducted by Indian paramilitary forces on May 29, 2009, gang-raped and subsequently killed in custody. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Aasifa Bano, was repeatedly gang-raped by Indian policemen and communal Hindus affiliated with Hindutva organizations in the Kathua area of Jammu in January 2018.
The report said Kashmiri women were mentally tortured through the killing, arresting and enforced disappearances of their loved ones. The world human rights bodies need to come forward to restrain India from committing heinous crimes and gross human rights violations against Kashmiri women, it stressed.
