SRINAGAR: Women have been the worst victims of Indian state terrorism in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) for the last over 75 years. An analytical report published by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service on Wednesday said at least 685 women have been martyred by the Indian troops in the occupied valley since January 2001.
It noted that the Kashmiri women have been the worst sufferers of the harrowing conflict, which has rendered 22,972 women widowed since 1989.
Indian Troops Involve in Sexual Harassment
It said that Indian troops, police, and paramilitary personnel had been routinely involved in sexual harassment of women to suppress the Kashmiris’ righteous demand for the right to self-determination.
Indian forces had molested and disgraced 11,263 Kashmiri women during the period, it added.
The report pointed out that the Shopian double-rape-and-murder, Kunanposhpora mass rape, and Kathua rape-and-murder of an 8-year-old girl are glaring examples of the extreme brutality of the Indian troops’ personnel in the occupied region since 1989.
Indian forces had molested around 100 women during a cordon and search operation in the Kunanposhpora area of Kupwara on the night of February 23, 1991. Indian men in uniform kidnapped two women, Aasiya and Neelofar, on May 29, 2009, in Shopian, raped and subsequently killed them in custody. The next morning, their bodies were found in a shallow stream in the town. An eight-year-old girl, Aasifa Bano, of Kathua district, was kidnapped, gang-raped, and subsequently murdered in January 2018. 7 Hindus, including 4 policemen and a temple priest, perpetrated the heinous crime.
The report said thousands of women had lost their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers in the occupied valley who were subjected to custodial disappearance by Indian troops, paramilitary, and police personnel. As per the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, more than 8,000 Kashmiris went missing in custody during the past thirty-five years, it added.
The report maintained that thousands of school boys and girls were also wounded by the pellets fired by Indian forces while over a hundred including 19-month-old Heeba Jan, two-year-old Nusrat Jan, Shabroza Mir (16), Shakeela Begum (35), Insha Mushtaq (16), Tammana (11), Ulfat Hameed (17), and Rafia Bano (31) lost their eyesight due to pellet injuries in the territory.
