Protest in Kunan poshpora village Maqbool’s Bhat’s Native Village Votes for ‘Change’
People braved a separatist boycott call
Kashmir Scenario.
KUPWARA , Dec 2: People braved a separatist boycott call and inclement weather to cast their ballots in the second phase of Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections on Tuesday. The army foiled an infiltration bid on the Line of Control (LoC) in this frontier district kupwara on Tuesday morning, on a day when voters of this border district were queueing up at polling booths. People were calm and waited patiently for their turn to vote. The 2008 repeated itself Tuesday in this north Kashmir district, exactly after six years and 14 days . However, there were no surprises this time.In 2008, the mood of people here had changed overnight after participating in the three-month long agitation across Kashmir over transfer of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. This time around, the indicators of massive polling were visible a fortnight before.
Tactically, the Election authorities, as was the case in 2008. And when the dawn struck the district today, people picked up the voting process from where they had left it in 2008. The biting cold didn’t stop men and women, elderly and young, from coming out of their houses early in the morning at some places much ahead of the scheduled polling time to cast their vote. At many places, under-age children shivered outside polling booths as they witnessed the exercise for fun. By the time the sun shone over Kupwara early afternoon, the voting percentage had already crossed 40 of the total electorate of 3,99,776 lac in five constituencies of the district—Kupwara., Handwara, Karnah, Lolab and Langate .Today, the first sign of brisk polling was visible at Wavoora, which is a part of Lolab constituency and in kralpora which is a part of Kupwara constituency.The highest percentage of voting was recorded in remote Lolab constituency with 70 percent turnout and the lowest in kupwara constituency with 48 percent and in Handwara 51 %, Langate 56% and in Karnah with 60% but less than 2008 assembly elections have with 63 % turn out in district kupwara , the native village of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front founder Muhammad Maqbool Bhat in Kupwara district voted in large numbers to “get rid” of legislator who according to them ignored their area from past 12 years. The large number of voters who were seen standing in queue outside polling stations were either from Bunpora or Sheikhpora while the people of Mohalla Maqbool Abad stayed away from poll process. Majority of the voters in Trehgam said they wanted change.In Trehgam town alone there are five thousand voters. This time the contest is between NC sitting legislator Mir Saifullah, PDP candidate Fayaz Ahmed Mir and People’s Conference candidate Advocate Bashir Ahmed Dar.Bhat was hanged and buried in Tihar jail, Delhi on February 11, 1984.
In kunan Poshpora there are similar repercussions now witnessed .The Elections today are nowhere close to smooth compared to the 2nd phase of elections. People from the villages of Kunan-poshpora in the frontier district of Kupwara protested outside polling booths established in the area. The protesters including victims of mass rape were carrying banners and placards. They were raising pro freedom slogans and demanding justice. “Soon after the protest started in the area, polling was halted for about twenty minutes. It was later resumed following the intervention by authorities,” said eyewitnesses.While campaigning for Jammu andKashmir Assembly elections is on full force, there is an twin villages have decided to boycott democratic exercise, today they repeat not cast there votes not because they support the separatists leaders, but because they have been demanding justice for what they allege is one of the worst cases of human rights abuse and mass gangrape by the Indian Army. According to the villagers of Kunan and Poshpora, soldiers of 4th Rajputana Rifles swooped down on their villages on the night of February 23, 1991, cordoned off the entire area, called out all the men, including boys as young as 10 years, pushed them towards the fields and also took some of them inside three houses in Kunan village which were turned into interrogation centres. The women, young girls and small children left behind in their homes had no idea that their nightmare had only begun. According to the villagers, who have been fighting a case in the Kupwara court for almost 24 years now with no justice in sight, the soldiers then barged into their homes to target women and girls.The Kunan Poshpora Coordination Committee, which was formed by the victims and their family members to pursue the case, alleges that the soldiers did not even spare girls as young as 12 while the oldest victim of the mass gangrape was a 90-year-old woman. Awaiting justice, she died a few years ago aged almost 105. The petitioners claim that the troops raped several women although while filing the case they did not include the names of unmarried victims fearing for their future and keeping in mind the difficulties they were likely to face in getting married. The exact number of women who were raped that night is still not clear but ranges from 40 to as high as 100.Not all villagers reported about the mass gangrape, fearing retribution from the Army, which has till now maintained innocence of its troops and called the allegations baseless and fabricated.
Many were also wary of being ostracised by their relatives as rape is seen as loss of honour.Ghulam Ahmed Dar, who heads the Kunan Poshpora Coordination Committee and was in his mid 40s when the atrocities took place, claims that the men were beaten up and tortured by the officers and a few soldiers of the raiding unit while the rest of the troops fanned out into the two villages raping their women and bringing dishonour to their village. According to Dar, when the men returned to their homes next morning, they found their women cowering under beds and in cattle sheds while some of them were even found in the fields. All of them had their clothes torn, with many of them bleeding profusely from the brutal sexual assault. He also went on to claim that one of the victims died after five days due to excessive bleeding. Till date five victims have lost their lives even as the case has lingered on in a Kupwara court for over 24 years with the Army, Centre and state government denying that such an incident ever took place in Kunan and Poshpora.