In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders have deplored that India is using the rape of Kashmiri women as a weapon of war to humiliate the Kashmiris and suppress their ongoing struggle to secure freedom from its subjugation.
Senior APHC leader, Ghulam Ahmed Gulzar, in a statement issued in Srinagar said the International Women’s Day being commemorated, today, all over the world, is meaningless for the Kashmiri women. He said the women in IIOJK continue to be killed, tortured, arrested and raped in broad day light by trigger happy Indian troops.
He paid glowing tributes to the valiant Kashmiri women for their supreme sacrifices in the ongoing freedom movement. He said although every Kashmiri is victim of Indian state terrorism, but the women are the worst sufferers of the Indian savagery. He maintained that the Kunanposhpora tragedy in which around a hundred women were gang-raped by Indian troops in a single night and Shopian dual rape and murder case are glaring examples of Indian brutality in the occupied territory. He urged the champions of women rights to take cognizance of the plight of women of IIOJK.
APHC leaders, Yasmeen Raja and Chaudhry Shaheen Iqbal, in their statement said the Kashmiri women are playing an important role in the ongoing freedom movement. They said the Indian troops in their bids to suppress the freedom struggle have raped and molested thousands of women in the last thirty four years but failed in their nefarious designs.
The APHC leaders also condemned the criminal silence maintained by the world community on the Indian brutalities on the women in the occupied territory. They said that the United Nations should take notice of the ongoing oppression of Kashmiri women by the Indian Army in IIOJK.
Meanwhile, APHC-AJK chapter leaders Muhammad Sultan Butt and Qazi Imran in their statements in Islamabad on the International Women’s Day said the women are part and parcel of the Kashmir freedom movement and their sacrifice will never be forgotten. They appealed to the world human rights organizations to come forward in a big way and investigate the heinous crimes perpetrated by Indian troops against the women in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.—KMS
