Kashmiri Women-A War Crime Victim

Writes Uzma Qureshi

The Valley of Kashmir has been witnessing a massive turmoil since last 30 years. The most inhuman and dastardly acts have been committed which brings shame to man’s supremacy over animals. People are killed everyday irrespective of caste, color and creed. Kashmir has experienced the worst forms of human rights violations. Everyday there is some news or other about killings, missing or molestation. Every Single door of Kashmir has a tale of woe or misery; murmuring to oneself-someone has died. For those who died, the struggle for existence ended, but those who sustained, they were tortured, castrated, maimed raped and molested. For the families, the hardship still persists and not only that they have to overcome the physical trauma, but the psychological abuse as well. The laughter on their faces is fake, mechanical, somber with a metallic resonance, and seems as if the person is making his way through the city of dead. The world sympathizes with them, but practically at the time of crime, there is utter helplessness. All that they can do is weep.

We see Kashmir through the eyes of a child of tender years, who has seen his father being killed, or his mother being harassed, or his sister being raped, or his brother tortured. What thoughts will he harbor about life and its bounties? What dreams he will caste? Deprived from his born rights, all he can do is to trudge along the road of life, struggling with the society and in fact with itself, like a beast of burden, until a bullet puts him down.

Just look at Kashmir- especially the plight of its women. Widows, orphans, destitute; all traumatized and the time when you witness your inner call says, “The “paradise on Earth” is losing its grandeur, dying a slow death, endless lives lost, and miseries continue unabated with each passing day. People displaced from their homes, fighting odds to survive, with deep ached memories. How, why & when we reached this stage pales into insignificance when confronted with the varying shades of misery and pain. IS THIS PLACE WE CALLED “THE PARADISE???
Women, being the most vulnerable, account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict. Among the worst kind of human rights violations that occur in Kashmir, rapes and molestations are on alarming increase. Rape and molestation has been systematically used as weapon by the Indian forces to intimidate and humiliate weak population. Women become targets of sexual aggression of the armed forces during house to house searches, whether in towns, or in villages. During such searches, the techniques that usually used by the men in uniform is to order all men to gather at one place and later to be identified by army informers, and thus, on the other hand, houses are searched in their absence. They are not even allowed to come back until the search is completed or, I must use straight words, until they are done with their odious crime. The so-called searches that took place in such conditions are frequent occasion of sexual assault on the women.
Our valley has been witnessing a chain of such incidents every now and then. Such incidents gave me goose pumps and make me virulent. These incidents have paralyzed us in such a way that thinking about future seems to be a luxury that is hardly affordable. I must often said that a women is a building block of a family, but one ponders when she is exploited, how it effects every individual’s life and thus the impact is so strong that it cannot be shrugged off easily. Bruised bodies, mauled souls, stressed minds, ailing hearts, shattered hopes and disturbed faces need something more than hollow sympathies offered by the public and the shameless governments. And yet we just hear and ignore.
Many incidents have certified the atrocities done towards us by Indian troops, and one such incident that hovers in my mind which reveals the vale of the despair…….
First time when I met Shahzada and Shameema I could feel their anguish. They were huddled near the gas heater. Both sisters were very quiet. I thought a family member had disappeared. Little did I know they were the victims of the system themselves?
Shahzada, 18yrs old, and shameema, 16, were living with their parents and three younger siblings in Dangerpora, in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir. Both sisters would diligently sit at their carpet weaving, trying to earn a living. These young innocent girls were living happily in their village.
On October 2002, while they were returning from a wedding party, the girls were surrounded by armed renegades (pro government, ex-militants working with the Indian security forces). They forcibly took both sisters along with them. Their father, Abdul Rehman searched for them everywhere. After three days of captivity Shameema managed to escape and return home. After her return the renegades visited them and threatened Abdul Rehman. They warned him for going to the police for assistance.
Shahzada was forced to marry a 40year old renegade, who already had a wife and five kids. She was kept as his wife and both moved from house to house. In February he took her to his own house. There Shahzada was subjected to vocal abuse from his wife. All this time the renegade wanted shahzada to bear a child from him. This scared Shahzada further and somehow she managed to escape. On February 23rd, three armed renegades accompanying the renegades who had kidnapped her visited the family. They threatened Abdul Rehman that if he did not return Shahzada back to them, they would shoot him and burn down the house. They also wanted shameema to marry one of their group members. Soon after the renegades left, Dar could not take it longer and he managed to flee with his two daughters in the middle of the night.
Yet another case of molestation of innocent girls at the hands of so-called security forces that cannot be ignored happened in Shopian where some college girls of Shopian in south Kashmir were molested in broad day lighten- route college by troops of 1Rashtriya Rifles.
A bus boarded with passengers was stopped and the usual process of routine checking and frisking was conducted. All the passengers were asked to get down from the bus, which they did. There were about a dozen girl students of Degree College Shopian traveling in the bus. The entire college going girls were kept on the side. The personnel of the troops started harassing them and sang vulgar Hindi film songs. They also hurled abuse on them. They showed a piece of paper and told the girls that they had received a love letter from one of the girls. This irritated the girls and they vehemently refused to accept that the letter was written by them, this irked the personnel and they started pushing the girls and when the girls resisted they were molested. One of the army men even set the barrel of his gun towards a girl. The girls said that they were repeatedly subjected to verbal abuse by the security forces and had to face a lot of humiliation. That day the personnel went a step ahead and physically abused them. One of the girls who were molested spoke to KWIPD on condition of anonymity. She said, “the troops constantly abuse us verbally, they check our bags and even read our notes. They often used to make Vulgar Remarks at us and use derogatory language, but on that day they crossed the limits, they kept all the college going girls aside and said that we had written a love letter to them, which is just trash and only a pretext to talk to us. They showed a piece of paper from a distance. This was getting too much for us to bear and we started moving towards the bus, at that moment the personnel sprang into action and tried to stop us, they manhandled us and when we resisted they beat us with canes and guns. We told them, to kill us since the continuous trouble and mental torture and have made our journey to college tough
Another infamous story of a mother and daughter who were raped by security forces in the intervening night of January 13 and 14, 2000 in a Village, Nowgam, Banihal Tehsil, of Jammu division of the Jammu & Kashmir state. The accused, an army captain Ravinder Singh Tewati of 12 RR, camped at Upper Gund Banihal, along with three jawans committed the inhuman act and after leaving the house had threatened the family with dire consequences in case they revealed the incident to any body. Three years after the gruesome incident the wounds have never healed and the pain is writ large on their faces. The impact of the incident was such that the mother went in a state of shock and was hospitalized in the valley’s lone Psychiatric Hospital at Srinagar for six months. Even today she is on strong anti depressant drugs. She fumbles as she speaks and not to talk of Kulsoom, who although married and mother of a six month baby lives in constant fear psychosis. The mention of the incident is a trauma.
What happened to Kulsoom or her mother is nothing knew in this state, such form of Human Rights abuse continue unabated here from the last 30 years. But the question is that the judicial processes and the callous attitude of our society have further subjugated those victims, who dared to raise their voices against atrocities. The guilty are never punished; every Kashmiri remembers the Kunanposh Pora incident. Rapes committed in year 1990, by Indian forces on large scale with rape victims publicly admitting the crime committed on them. What happened then? Nothing, the files were buried in the debris of judicial offices. Again in the Year 1997, there were rapes on large scale in Wawoosa, a village 8 Kms, away from Srinagar. Owing to such incidents people have lost faith in judiciary.
When and how the justice would be delivered to the duos, when will the time arrive when the suppressing authorities will be accountable for the innocent blood that is being shed, the tears that are flowing, and for every sigh of pain that is emitting in the lives of the sufferers…..?
Is it not the responsibility of every Kashmiri to take concrete steps in this regard so that our future generation, have a better and a prosperous life to survive in? For how long we have to suffer?
Until sufferings won’t end, Peace won’t survive!!!!!!!!!!!!