ISLAMABAD:As the world is observing the International Women’s Day on Saturday, the sufferings and victimization of Kashmiri women at the hands of Indian troops, police and agencies continue unabated in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
A report issued by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service revealed that the devastating impact of Indian state terrorism on women in IIOJK.
Since January 2001, at least 688 women have been martyred by Indian forces’ personnel.
The report further highlights that, since January 1989, 22,981 women have been widowed, while 11,266 have been molested or disgraced at the hands of Indian troops, underscoring the ongoing brutality and suffering endured by Kashmiri women.
The report underscores some of the most horrifying crimes committed by Indian troops, including the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape, the Shopian double rape and murder of 17-year-old Aasiya Jan and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan, and the brutal gang rape and murder of eight-year-old Aasifa Bano in Kathua.
These cases stand as grim reminders of the widespread sexual violence and atrocities inflicted upon Kashmiri women under Indian occupation.
The Kashmir dispute has been marred by the widespread use of sexual violence by multiple belligerents since its inception.
In 1947, during the Jammu massacres, mass rapes were perpetrated by Dogra troops, alongside Hindu fanatics, in a brutal campaign against the territory’s Muslim population.
Thousands of Muslim women were abducted, raped, and subjected to unimaginable horrors, particularly in Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch, and Kathua.
These atrocities were not random acts of violence but a systematic attempt at ethnic cleansing, actively facilitated by the forces of the Dogra State under Maharaja Hari Singh.
Since the 1988 popular uprising, scholars and human rights organizations have consistently documented the use of rape as a weapon of war by Indian state forces, including the Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Border Security Force (BSF).
The deliberate and targeted nature of these crimes underscores the continuing pattern of oppression in IIOJK, where sexual violence remains a tool of subjugation and terror against the local population.
After 1989, Indian forces selectively raped, tortured and killed Kashmiri Muslims, burnt their homes and business centers. The Indian forces have committed rape as a form of retaliation against civilians, who were demanding right to self-determination under UN supervision.
According to a 1993 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, the Indian forces use rape as a method of retaliation against Kashmiri civilians. Most rape cases, according to the same report, have occurred during cordon-and-search operations.
In October 1992, representatives from Asia Watch group and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) traveled to Kashmir to document rape and other human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war by Indian forces. Later they released a book “Rape in Kashmir” on May 9, 1993.
The KMS report further said that thousands of women lost their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers in the occupied territory who were subjected to custodial disappearance by the Indian troops. As per the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, at least 8,000 Kashmiris went missing in custody during the past 36 years, it added.
The report revealed that thousands of school boys and girls were also injured by the pellets fired by Indian troops.
Four-year-old Zuhra Majeed was hit by pellets in her legs and abdomen after her family was targeted by Indian police outside their home in Qamarwari in Srinagar on July 10, 2016.
As per the report, a police constable and Special Police Officer (SPO) in July 2021 gang raped a minor Dalit girl in Dansal area of Jammu.
The report said that the world community must wake up to stop sexual violence being perpetrated by Indian troops in IIOJK.
Over three dozen women and girls, including Hurriyat leaders are facing illegal detention in different jails of IIOJK and India.
They are being political victimized only for the reason that they represent the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and their demand for the right to self-determination, it said
The report further pointed out that womenfolk are among the majority of the Kashmiris suffering from multiple psychic problems. The women who lost their men due to enforced disappearances are referred to as “half-widows,” because of their uncertain status between wife hood and widowhood.
Many mothers died after waiting for their disappeared sons while widows and half-widows are in pain since decades in the occupied territory.
From Azad Jammu and Kashmir, around 400 women who married Kashmiri youth are facing injustice in the occupied territory as the Indian government is neither giving them citizenship rights, nor travel documents to go back to AJK. Their children are denied admissions in government schools.
“I came here in 2012. My mother died recently but I could not go to see her one last time. We can’t meet our relatives and family members. Parents of many women died during these years but they could not attend the funeral,” said Saba Fayaz who belongs to AJK and married a youth from IIOJK.
Women in Kashmir don’t enjoy the basic rights which are given under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and even promised under CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly described as an international bill of rights for women.
The report said Kashmiri women stand like a rock today facing the worst sort of political and social pressures like the wife of illegally detained Hurriyat leader Ayaz Akbar, Rafiqa Begum, who died due to cancer in Maloora, Shalteing in Srinagar in 2021. Ayaz Akbar is facing illegal detention in Tihar Jail since July 2017 on false charges.
Another victim, Maroofa Meraaj, wife of illegally detained Hurriyat leader Raja Meraaj-ud-Din Kalwal having four daughters said, “I am suffering from depression and so are my daughters who have not seen their father since long.” Her mother-in-law and mother of the jailed Hurriyat leader, Raja Meraaj-ud-Din Kalwal also died due to depression few years ago.
“Our life has turned into hell. In his absence, things have become too difficult. Our relatives do help us. But it can’t go a long way. We have no one to look after us,” Maroofa said, adding her husband has been kept in jail just for his political views.
The families of illegally detained APHC leaders and activists, who are lodged in different jails, are waiting their son’s and husband’s release.
There are hundreds of mothers, wives and daughters who are waiting the return of their dear ones including APHC Chairman, Masarrat Alam Butt, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Dr Hameed Fayaz, Bilal Siddiqi, Maulvi Bashir Irfani, Zafar Akbar Butt, Abdul Ahad Parra, human rights defender Khurram Parviaz, and other activists and youth languishing in different jails of IIOJK and India for last several years.
Meanwhile, APHC leaders, Yasmeen Raja, Farida Bahenji and Ms Hafza Bano have said the women across the world are observing International Women’s Day but the oppressed women of IIOK have nothing to commemorate.
They urged the instruments of international justice and watchdogs like UN as well as the international community to intervene and take cognizance of the sufferings of the Kashmiri women. They said the Kashmiri women are taking a leading role in the ongoing freedom struggle and called upon the world community to force India to protect the women’s rights in IIOJK.
At the 52nd United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Professor William Baker gave testimony, that rape in Kashmir was not merely a case of isolated incidents involving undisciplined soldiers, rather the Indian forces were actively deploying rape on the Kashmiri populace as a method of humiliation and frightening.
An Amnesty International report in 1992 stated that rape is conducted during counter-offensives against freedom fighters as part of a bid to methodically shame local Kashmiri communities.
According to Human Rights Watch: There are no reliable statistics on the number of rapes committed by Indian forces in Kashmir. Human rights groups have documented many cases since 1990, but because many of the incidents have occurred in remote villages, it is impossible to confirm any precise number. There can be no doubt that the use of rape is common and routinely goes unpunished.
Rape by Indian forces has notably occurred in different operational areas and it has also happened to women from the Gujjar community, who live on the periphery of Kashmiri society. According to journalist Freny Manecksha, who tried to document conflict-related rapes in Kashmir in 2012–2013, their remote location has left them more susceptible to sexual violence.
According to scholars Om Prakash Dwivedi and V. G. Julie Rajan, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has enabled the Indian military and other personnel to commit war crimes with impunity.
According to Human Rights Watch, the military courts in India, in general, were proved to be incompetent to deal with cases of serious human rights abuses and were responsible in covering up evidence and protecting the involved officers.
Khurram Parvez remarks that women fear reprisals from the Army to file the cases of rape.
He says, “This is because there are cases in which when rape was reported, members of their families were attacked or prosecuted.”
He also states that it would be technically very difficult to prove rape, since the incidents happen in the areas which are completely under the Army’s control.
