Srinagar
In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, speakers at a one-day seminar have called upon the international community to take India to task for perpetrating war crimes in terms of sexual and physical harassment of women in the territory.
The event was organised by Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Khawateen Markaz at its office in Srinagar on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, today.
The participants while expressing sympathies with rape and pellet victims in IIOJK said, Kashmiri women are facing widespread violations of human rights. They also asked for launching a campaign to end violence against women in the occupied territory.
The Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Khawateen Markaz Chairperson Yasmeen Raja in her address said that Indian forces were systematically using rape to terrorize the entire Kashmiri population. She said the Kashmiri women are routinely harassed and raped by Indian forces who are using rape as a method of retaliation against the Kashmiri civilians for staging anti-India protests against frequent cordon and search operations. She added that Indian soldiers enter a civilian house, kill or evict the men before raping the women.
She said that the Kunanposhpora incident of February 23, 1991 involving gang-rape of around one hundred Kashmiri women in a single night and rape and murder of Aasiya and Neelofar on the intervening night of May 29 and 30, 2009 in Shopian, by Indian troops were the glaring example of how India is using rape and molestation as a weapon of war in IIOJK.
She also cited the gruesome rape and murder of an 8-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua in January 2018 to prove that Indian troops and police officers are in fact rapists in uniform.—KMS
