Report by Kashmir Media Watch.
SRINAGAR: 21 years ago, Kashmir witnessed one of the worst human rights violations by the Indian Security Forces notoriously known as The Kunan-Poshpora Mass Rape wherein a number of women (ranging from 7 to 70 years) of the said village were gang-raped by 4th Rajputana Rifles on 23 February 1991 in this small village of District Kupwara.
According to an elderly woman narrated the story to the team of Kashmir Media Watch who visited recently Kunan Poshpora , “ around 10 to 15 soldiers entered every home on that day in the village. They gagged the women to prevent them from raising hue and cry. We were not able to make much noise,” she said. There must have been around 1,000 soldiers in the village that night, she burst into tears while recalling that horrific night. When interviewed in 1991, villagers claimed about 100 women were molested. “They left the very small girls untouched,” she adds. “Besides them, no one was spared.”
In this carnage, the women were systematically assaulted and gang-raped, regardless of marital status, pregnancy, or age. It was the most inhuman act in the history of humancivilization.
As the events unfolded, according to one of the victim the next day at 10:00 am, the Deputy Commandant came to the village. “He told the women that the army has not done anything wrong.”Furious, this elderly lady pulled her friend, who was also abused that night, out of her home to stand in front of the army commandant. “I told him that she is an 80-year-old lady, but even she was not spared by his men.”
“He didn’t say a word. He stood speechless,” she recalls. “He just looked down”. International media sources have reported the horrific nature of this event in their own way. On April 7, 1991; the New York Times reported the Kunan-Poshpora rape incident under the headline, “India Moves against Kashmir Rebels.” According to the report, on March 5, 1991, villagers complained about the incident to the then-Kupwara District Magistrate, S.M Yasin, who visited the village two days later to investigate. “According to a report filed by Yasin,” the article reads, “the armed forces behaved like violent beasts.” He identified them as members of 4th Rajputana Rifles and said they rampaged through the village from 11:00 pm on Feb 23 until 9:00 am the next morning.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Indian authorities have dismissed the mass-rape charges as “groundless.” No further investigations have been conducted. The Kunan-Poshpora rape case has been buried like thousands of other cases of basic human rights abuse by men in uniform in Kashmir.
However, in its 1992 report on international human rights, the United States Department of State rejected the Indian government’s conclusion, saying there was “credible evidence to support charges that an elite army unit engaged in mass-rape…in Kunan-Poshpora.”
One of the villagers revealed to Kashmir Media Watch that his story is like that of the old woman. “It was snowing outside that night. People were sleeping in their homes. The army came and entered every home. The men were taken out and interrogated near the village bus stand.”
He pauses, briefly. “Then they locked the rooms and raped our mothers and sisters.”
As the dawn broke after that horrific night in 1991, the soldiers let the men of the village go. The men immediately ran for their homes. The villager further stated “When we reached our homes we found our womenfolk weeping,” says the villager. Despite their rage, which prompted them to seek swift justice for the crimes of the soldiers, the people of the village were unable to do anything. “We would have gone to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) against the army, but we couldn’t as the entire village was cordoned off.”
Four days after the incident, the villagers eventually were finally able to gain an audience with the nearby authorities. They collectively lodged an FIR at the nearby rural police station. The police arrived in the village to collect evidence and file a case against the army.
It was not difficult to muster up evidence and credible witnesses: doctors and nurses examined the women, police confirmed mass rape, and a report was submitted. But according to the villagers, almost two decades later, the reports of doctors confirming rape are still lying in the Trehgam police station near Kunan-Poshpora. Dilbagh Singh, who was the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Kupwara that time, investigated the case, but after he was promoted the investigation was stopped.
The incident has had serious ramifications for the women in Kunan-Poshpora that extends far beyond psychological damage and sensitivity. Memories of the incident are raw. Some women are even now afraid of marriage, while others are harassed or ignored by the men of the village because of the stigma associated with rape.
A young woman named Rahte was holding her baby in her lap when the men entered her home. “She fell from my arms near the window as I shouted for help.” Rahte’s daughter – who was a baby in 1991 on that night – comes inside the room, limping from the injury on her left leg that she sustained that night. More than thinking about her own past, her mother is worried about her daughter’s future. Her daughter hides behind Rahte’s scarf, shying away from any talk about her. “She doesn’t want to marry now,” Rahte described this to Kashmir Media Watch as her daughter keeps her eyes lowered, fiddling with the edges of her mother’s scarf.
What is tragic to note is that over the years, Kunan-Poshpora families have opted to marry their daughters to relatives because it is now difficult to find suitable matches in other villages. “People outside the village talk about our daughters, and say they are from ‘that’ village,” she says, putting emphasis on the word so that it becomes derogatory. “This label has made our lives difficult.”After the incident, some women who were unable to live with the shame fell into depression and died in the years that followed. Many refuse to talk about the abuse they have subsequently suffered from their neighbours and others.
Another damsel Sakeena’s life has taken a turn for the worse since 1991. Her eyes are cold and expressionless as she explains that her mother was 35 years old when the men barged inside their home. Sakeena herself, who was a small girl at the time, was not hurt, but she was in the house while her mother was raped.
Sakeena was married outside her village in Nowgam six years ago, but at the time of her wedding, her in-laws were unaware of her village’s sad history. When they eventually learned about the incident from newspapers and relatives, life became difficult for Sakeena.
“She was harassed and taunted by her in-laws,” her mother had revealed in her modest house overlooking a narrow street. Three years ago, Sakeena was sent back to her home in Kunan-Poshpora. Her in-laws are now seeking a divorce, but instead of talking to Sakeena directly, they delivered the message to her neighbours. The shame they seek to impart on her is manifest. Her husband never came to take her back and she had a stillborn child.
As a matter of fact, the men of Kunan-Poshpora have had difficulty dealing with the reality and aftermath of the incident. Some have resorted to violent revenge. After the mass rape, approximately 35 unmarried young men, between the ages of 18 and 30, left their homes to cross the border into Pakistan for arms training. They wanted revenge. According to the villagers, about 20 out of those 35 boys have been killed by now, and more have disappeared.
Certainly, the lack of justice in the Kunan-Poshpora incident is a matter of great concern for the democratic setup of India.
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