Modi’s Hindutva supremacist government continues to use rape and molestation as a weapon of war and collective punishment in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir to suppress the Kashmiris’ legitimate freedom struggle.
On April 22, 1997, several Indian armed forces personnel had entered the house of a 32-year-old woman in the village of Wavoosa, Srinagar and molested her 12-year-old daughter and raped three other daughters, aged 14, 16 and 18. Another woman was beaten for preventing the rape of her daughters by soldiers, said a report released by Kashmir Media Service, today.
It said the horrific acts of violence, mental torture, aggression and ruthless brutalities against women had turned life into a worse nightmare in the valley. The women of IIOJK have been faced with an unending ordeal of terror and trauma due to frequent abductions, sexual violence, illegal detentions and molestations at the hands of Indian forces on the pretext of ‘cordon and search operations’, it deplored.
The report said according to Human Rights Watch, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) shields the Indian forces from prosecution from their crimes of sexual violence. The draconian nature of the act has been described as a breach of the international human rights law by members of the international community, it added.
The report said India’s resort to sexual violence in IIOJK has been documented by two reports of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and global media and human rights organizations.—KMS
