FORGOTTEN WOMEN OF KASHMIR: 30 YEARS ON…!
By Ambassador Malik Nadeem Abid & Vincent Lyn
A Kashmiri Human Rights activist, from New York, remembers that “Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day” began as an effort to recognize the struggles of women living under the Indian occupation. He reminds us how Indian forces, since 1989, continuously employed mass rapes as a weapon of war to suppress the people’s will in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOK), and how the world aided and abetted by being a silent spectator. He urges the State of Pakistan, its politicians, media and civil society to find time to understand the enormity of what befell Kashmiri people and their women, and highlight this crime by commemorating February 23rd as a National day of mourning.
Before you read Ambassador Malik’s astonishing yet sobering and heart-breaking report. Many of us are not familiar with the history of the region and it’s important to understand the ongoing struggle and agonizing suffering that the people of Kashmir have tolerated. The following is a timeline of the most important events that have plagued the region.
India’s Hindu-nationalist government on August 5th, 2019 revoked Kashmir’s special autonomy status under the constitution, sparking fears of increased bloodshed in the region contested by nuclear rival Pakistan. Here is a timeline of major political and armed conflicts in the disputed Himalayan region where more than 100,000 people have been killed.
1947: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan are created after obtaining independence from British colonial rule. The former Himalayan kingdom of Kashmir is divided between the two nations, and they almost immediately go to war for total control of the territory. A U.N-backed ceasefire line agreed upon by the two nations in July 1949 becomes a de facto frontier which still remains today.
1948: Tribesmen stormed Indian Occupied Kashmir after hearing the news of slaughtering of Muslim Kashmiri’s by Hindu mobs. The tribesmen marched to the outskirts of Srinagar and were ready to storm the capital of Indian Occupied Kashmir when India sent its Interior Minister, Mr. Patel to the United Nations and requested its intervention. In exchange of the withdrawal of Pakistani Tribesmen from the outskirts of Srinagar, the Government of India offered Right to Self-Determination to the people of Kashmir. On April 21st, 1948 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 47. “Noting with satisfaction that both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.”
1953: Jammu and Kashmir prime minister Sheikh Abdullah is dismissed and imprisoned by New Delhi for almost 11 years over his support of the region’s independence. He eventually returns to power in 1975 to become the state’s first chief minister after partition.
1957: The constitution of Jammu and Kashmir comes into force, and gives the state a special position in India’s union.
1965–66: Pakistan launches a war against India for control of Kashmir. It ends inconclusively after a ceasefire brokered by the then Soviet Union.
1971–72: A new India-Pakistan war leads to the splitting away of East Pakistan, which becomes the independent state of Bangladesh. Following the conflict, the two nations sign the Simla Agreement and the ceasefire line becomes known as the Line of Control.
1984: Maqbool Bhat, the founder of a leading political separatist group the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is hanged in a New Delhi jail for murdering an intelligence officer.
1989–90: A Muslim uprising breaks out against Indian rule in Indian Kashmir, inflaming tensions with Pakistan. New Delhi imposes direct rule. Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus — known as Pandits — flee to Hindu-dominated areas of the disputed region and other parts of India in the wake of an armed insurgency.
1996: State assembly elections are held for the first time in seven years, but the contentious poll is marred by allegations of coercion by New Delhi. It followed elections in 1987 that were marred by graft and foreshadowed an armed rebellion against Indian rule.
1999: Infiltrators from Pakistan raid Indian Kashmir’s Kargil sector, sparking a six-week conflict leading to the deaths of 1,000 combatants on both sides. The battle ends under U.S pressure. The two nations agree to the 1999 Lahore declaration that called for a negotiated settlement of all issues, including Kashmir.
2001–03: A summit between the Indian PM and Pakistani President in the northern India city of Agra collapses over the issue of Kashmir. A new series of attacks in 2001 and 2002 leads to a new mobilization of Indian and Pakistani troops at the de-facto border. In November 2003 Pakistan declares a unilateral ceasefire along the Line of Control, leading to an inconclusive peace process the following year.
2008: The state government plans to hand over a plot of land to a trust managing an annual pilgrimage, sparking separatist claims of a Hindu takeover and anti-India protests. The transfer is later rescinded.
2010: A bloody uprising over the death of three civilians sees more than a hundred killed in street protests.
2016: The killing of a popular rebel leader sparks months of street protests that leave more than a hundred dead. Later in the year, an assault on an army base in Kashmir near to the border kills 18 soldiers, in what is the worst rebel attack in the region for 15 years. India claims its special commandos carried out a series of lightning strikes along the border with Pakistan in Kashmir, a claim Pakistan dismissed.
2019: New Delhi vows retaliation after at least 40 paramilitaries are killed in a suicide attack in Indian Kashmir, which it blames on a Pakistan-based militant group. The attack prompts tit-for-tat air strikes between the two nuclear-armed nations, taking them to the brink of war. Pakistan put an end to the issue by shooting down two Indian jets that had entered Pakistan’s airspace in Kashmir, and capturing an Indian pilot in the process. The Indian pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, was allowed safe access back to India via the Wagah border after two days of being detained.
On August 5, 2019 — the Indian government revokes Kashmir’s special status, stripping it of the significant autonomy it has enjoyed for seven decades. Among the Indian government actions accompanying the revocation was the cutting off of communication lines in the Kashmir Valley restored after 5 months. Thousands of security forces were deployed to curb any uprising. Several leading Kashmiri politicians were taken into custody, including the former chief minister, Government officials described these restrictions as designed for preempting violence, and justified the revocation for enabling people of the state to access government programmes such as reservation, right to education and right to information.
Kashmir has suffered so much that it’s hard to point a day as its darkest. Yet, February 23rd, 1991 can perhaps be called the darkest day in the history of Kashmir. On this cold and dark night in 1991, Indian army barged into the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora in Kupwara District.
The area was already under Indian control since 1947, but had been facing political unrest since the insurgency of 1988–9; Indian soldiers celebrated their victory over the defiant Kashmiris by raping every girl & woman in those two villages.
Rigging Elections of 1987 and the Insurgency!
The history of mankind is full of conflicts, and every conflict has painful stories of brutality and inhumane actions. India — that under Gandhi & Nehru presented itself as a tolerant civilization — has unfortunately added new chilling dimensions of barbarism to a troubled human saga.
Though Kashmiris had suffered untold miseries at the hands of erstwhile Maharaja and then Indian occupation after 1947, after 1989 this turned into an unbelievable and unending nightmare. Kashmiris had always demanded accession with Pakistan, but rigged elections of 1987 — amidst a new younger generation that rejected their elders’ pacifism — sparked statewide resistance and an armed struggle for freedom from Indian occupation.
Indian army, in the world’s most militarized region, reacted with an iron hand and under the name of search operations — tortured, arrested, maimed and killed countless civilians. Enforced disappearances, fake encounters, extra-judicial killings, imprisonment without any legal process, and property destruction became a part of everyday life in the valley.
Rape: India’s favorite weapon of war
When this was not enough, Indian Security Forces used rape as a “Weapon of War” to demoralize civilians, destroy their self-respect and crush their urge for freedom. Many times, rape was used as retaliation for militant attacks on security forces. According to an investigation report of Asia Watch (Division of Human Rights Watch) and Physicians for Human Rights, published in 1993:
“Rape has also occurred frequently during reprisal attacks on civilians following militant ambushes. In these cases, any civilians residing in the area become the target of retaliation. Anyone within the range may be shot; homes and other property burned, and women raped. In some cases, women who have been raped have been accused of providing food or shelter to militants or have been ordered to identify their male relatives as militants. In other cases, the motivation for the abuse is not explicit. In many attacks, the selection of victims is seemingly arbitrary, and the women, like other civilians assaulted or killed, are targeted simply because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since most cases of rape take place during cordon-and-search operations, just living in a certain area can put women at risk of rape”.
The report continues to mention, “Although Indian human rights groups and the international press have reported on the widespread use of rape by the Indian security forces in Kashmir, the use of rape in the conflict has seldom attracted much international condemnation.
What happened in Kunan & Poshpora?
On February 23rd, 1991, twin villages of Kunan & Poshpora in Kupwara District were cordoned off by 4th Rajputana Rifles, who, under cover of search operations raped every single girl and woman. The youngest victim was just 13 years of age, and the oldest was 60. The total number of rape victims may have been around 100 — but despite a local furor, no accurate records ever surfaced.
Many of these women have died during the last 30 years, and others are still waiting for justice to be served. The US Department of State, in its 1991 Annual Human Rights report, confirmed the incident, and so did the New York Times. Unfortunately, no formal police investigation ever took place about this heinous crime against humanity.
Prominent Kashmiri peace activist Khurram Parvez had once said, “What is the Indian judiciary doing for Kashmir? The mass rape case of Kunan and Poshpora is not a priority. Justice in a situation like this does not interest even the Supreme Court of India.” A young scholar from Srinagar, Natasha Rathor — along with five other women — had written the book, “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora”.
She recently told the media: “Drawing inspiration from the courageous women of Kunan and Poshpora, and other such survivors from Kashmir who were subjected to systematic sexual violence and torture by the Indian Armed Forces, and who are fighting for justice since the last 28 years now, every year since 2014, commemorate the February 23rd as “Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day.”
“Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day” is thus an effort to recognize the struggles of women living under the Indian occupation, to bring to the forefront the experiences of living in the world’s most densely militarized zone, and to fight against forgetting.”
Orgies of Rape: But no convictions ever?
Rapes by Indian Security Forces are still widespread in Kashmir. During counter-insurgency operations, attacking Kashmiri women has become the easiest way to retaliate. Unfortunately, despite thousands of rapes in Kashmir, so far, not even a single military or para-military person has been convicted of his crime.
In May 2009, the abduction, rape and murder of two young girls, Neelofar (27th January) and her sister-in-law Asiya (17th January) in Shopian, was initially declared as ‘death due to drowning’ — in a stream that was less than 3 feet deep. After month-long statewide protests, enquiry commission declared that both were gang-raped, tortured and murdered. No one has ever been convicted of these crimes.
Read more: Bloody history of Kashmir — A Time Line
Another extremely painful case took place in Kathua, Jammu (February 2018), when a young girl of eight years, Asifa Bano, was abducted, tortured, sedated, gang-raped, and then brutally killed by seven men in a Hindu Mandir. Her torn off body was found in a nearby jungle. These are just a few examples of Indian civilization’s tight embrace of innocent Kashmiri civilians.
We, the Kashmiris, need thousands of pages to record these cases. Yet, that may be useless, for we know that the reach of Indian deep state is far more pernicious than imagined by most Indians, Pakistanis and those living in the west.
Mysterious disappearance of Kashmir Report from the US Congressional Library
My argument on the hold of this deep state around Kashmiri lives would remain incomplete if I did not mention this strange episode. The US House of Representatives’ Committee of Government Reform’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights had once conducted a detailed hearing about Human Rights violations in Kashmir.
Later a comprehensive 121 pages report titled “Decades of Terror: Exploring Human Rights Abuses in Kashmir and Disputed Territories” was submitted to the Congress recommending the President of United States to declare ‘Genocide’ in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. Interestingly, before anything could have been done, this report mysteriously disappeared from the Congressional Library.
Among many others who testified was Mr T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia: Amnesty International. In his brief opening statement, Mr Kumar said, “The Government of India’s armed forces, as well as the police, are involved in massive human rights abuses. I want to emphasize the term “massive”.
Thousands disappeared. The families did not know what happened to them, and they are still looking for their loved ones. Thousands were imprisoned and are still imprisoned. Quite a few people are executed, and thousands were tortured and raped. So, we have documented all these things, including rapes, which is very unique of certain issues there.
We live in a civilized society where even one rape is too many. And when we see thousands of gang rapes in Kashmir, our heart bleeds. One particular incident of mass rape in Kashmir is a challenge for the entire civilization.”
Appeal to Pakistan and its people
Every now and then, we hear echoes of victims of mass and gang rapes by Indian army in the media around the world. It’s very painful to share that I have never seen these grisly episodes highlighted in the Pakistani media.
In fact, members of Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, several Pakistani diplomats, mainstream Pakistani media, including some very well-known anchors and even political leaders are completely unaware of this most painful aspect of the Kashmir conflict. Remember, February 23rd, 2021, will be the 30th Anniversary of ‘Mass Rapes’ in the twin villages of Kunan & Poshpora.
I hope that Pakistani media, Pakistani parliament (in general), Kashmir Committee (in particular), Pakistani Embassies, AJK leadership and most importantly, the people of Pakistan will feel the pain and agony of rape victims and will commemorate February 23rd as National Day of mourning. I also hope that no household will use any Indian products for at least one day and will boycott Indian movies.
His Excellency Ambassador Malik Nadeem Abid
Secretary General & Ambassador at large
International Human Rights Commission (IHRC)
SG@ihrc-hq.org
Vincent Lyn
CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children
Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization
Economic & Social Council at United Nations
Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency
Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts
WeCanSaveChildren@gmail.com