Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Pakistan observed Kashmiri Women’s Resistant Day on Sunday. Observed since 2014, the day is marked to highlight 1991 Kunan and Poshpora mass rape and torture by the occupying forces in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
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 Kunan-poshpora.
As human rights violations by the Indian occupying forces take a darker turn, the Kashmir Media Service has reported that since 2016, more than 10,000 protestors have been shot at with pellet guns and teargassed.
Approximately 900 women have been gang-raped and molested and more than 3,000 structures, including business and residential, have been destroyed.
The Indian state uses torture as a matter of policy in occupied Kashmir with tens of thousands of civilians having been subjected to it, a report stated.
The 560-page report titled Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir was released by Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and is the first comprehensive report on torture in the region.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan. Photo: File Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday asked the world, especially women, “to become the voice of resilient Kashmiri women for peace” in occupied Kashmir which has been under an Indian military lockdown for nearly 200 days.
Highlighting the Kashmir Women Resistance Day, he spoke of how the Indian forces have continuously engaged in war crimes against women of the disputed territory for almost 70 years.
“Today is Kashmir Women Resistance Day. For 7 decades, Indian forces have committed war crimes against women in IOJK. Their sufferings have multiplied after 5 Aug siege by Modi Govt,” PM Imran wrote on Twitter.
. I urge world community, esp women, to become voice of resilient Kashmiri women for peace in IOJK..
Back on August 5, 2019, India had unilaterally scrapped Article 370 of the Constitution, effectively removing occupied Kashmir’s special status, and imposed a military lock-down, as
Earlier this month, PM Imran had said India’s move to revoke Kashmir’s special status was a “fatal” one by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and that it would lead to the region’s independence.
“I believe due to this action by Modi in August, Kashmir would be made independent,” the premier had said. “Before August 5 the world did not care or listen about the injustice in Kashmir.”
“August 5 was a fatal mistake and Modi cannot back down now. He did this because he got a big mandate in the elections he campaigned against Pakistan and brought the Hindutva philosophy and teach a lesson to Pakistan.
PM Imran added that before August 5, last year, the issue “was all hidden” and that highlighting the Modi administration’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) philosophy at the UN General Assembly was in line with his promise to “become a messenger of Kashmir”.
He also spoke of explaining the Kashmir issue to US President Donald Trump, who he told thrice what the contention was. “I know how the west gets affected and any philosophy equated with Nazis cannot be ignored They know what is Nazi philosophy.”
