Chairperson of Peace and Culture Organization, Mushaal Hussein Mullick said that the fascist Indian forces were using rape as a weapon of war to humiliate the people of Indian illegally Occupied Jammu Kashmir (IIOJK) and suppress the powerful dissenting voices to defuse the flames of freedom struggle.
Speaking at a Roundtable Debate titled “Targeting Vulnerable Groups as a Weapon of War: Indian’s Abuse and Impunity in Kashmir organized by Legal Forum for Kashmir-LFK” on the occasion of the Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day observed on both sides of Kashmir on Thursday, she said that the notorious army forces were committing such heinous war crimes under the protection of draconian law, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), giving complete impunity to the brutal forces from accountability, said a press release.
On the occasion, she paid tribute to the struggles and sacrifices of the survivors of mass rape and torture in Kunanposhpora, who were yet to get justice despite lapse of 32 years and vowed that the brave Kashmiri women would not let go in vain their sacrifices.
Mushaal, the wife of incarcerated senior Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik, said that as February 23 was one of the blackest days in the history of Kashmir when Indian troops entered Kunanposhpora area in Kupwara district and committed mass rape.
She said that Indian troops had gang-raped around 100 women of all ages from eight to eighty years old on the night of February 23 in 1991 during a siege and search operation in Kunanposhpora in Kupwara district.
The chairperson stated that Kunanposhpora mass rape was a glaring example of Indian troops’ brutalities in IIOJK. It is a blot on the so-called democratic face of India, which is using rape of women as an instrument of state terrorism in IIOJK.
She went on to say that the gravity of the situation could be judged from the fact that at least 682 women have been martyred by Indian troops since January 2001 till date. The Hurriyat leader stated that since January 1989, the unabated Indian state terrorism rendered 22,957 women widowed while Indian forces’ personnel have molested 11,256 women. She stated that thousands of women lost their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers in the occupied territory who were subjected to custodial disappearance by Indian Army, police and paramilitary personnel.
Mushaal demanded that the international human rights organizations and word powers should take urgent steps for providing justice to the victims of the Kunanposhpora tragedy and made the culprits the example so as no Indian troop could ever commit such heinous crime again.
