Daily Times

All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) have expressed deep regret that despite the passage of over three decades, victims of Kunan-Poshpura mass rape have not been provided justice.

According to Kashmir Media Service, Indian troops had gang-raped around 100 women of all ages from eight to eighty on the night of February 23, 1991, during a siege and search operation in the Kunan-Poshpora area of Kupwara district.

APHC leader Muhammad Yousaf Naqash in a statement in Srinagar said the Kunan-Poshpora incident serves as a vivid example of India’s unhesitant actions.

He added that from the outset, India’s policymakers and implementers had employed every inhumane measure as a tool of war, aiming to convey to Kashmiris that India could disrespect their self-worth, honour and values through any form of aggression.

Hurriyat leaders Fayaz Hussain Jafari and Syed Sibte Shabbir Qummi in their separate statements in Srinagar said India is using the rape of women as a weapon of war to suppress the Kashmiris’ struggle for the right to self-determination and the tragic incident of Kanan-Pushpura is its clear example.

They said a long time has passed but none of the involved Indian troopers have been punished to date and many of the victimized women have left the world without justice. The Indian troops in the occupied territory have humiliated thousands of Kashmiri women, many Kashmiri women have been locked up in jails for years, and thousands of Kashmiri women have become widows due to the massacre of innocent people but despite all this, India could not lower their morale, they added.

Meanwhile, the spokesman of Islamic Tanzeem-e-Azadi Jammu and Kashmir in a statement in Srinagar said that the Indian forces’ open threats to imprison and detain the people of occupied Kashmir, including the Hurriyat leadership cannot change the reality of the Kashmir dispute.

He also expressed a serious concern over the continued detention of the party Chairman Abdul Samad Inqilabi and reiterated the pledge to never accept India’s forced occupation of their motherland and to resist its military aggression at any cost.

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has strongly denounced the continued illegal detentions of Hurriyat leaders and activists on false charges in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

According to Kashmir Media Service, APHC spokesman in a statement issued in Srinagar said that the RSS-backed Hindutva government of India was subjecting the Hurriyet leaders and activists including women to the worst kind of political vengeance for their rightful political beliefs and their just stance on the Kashmir dispute.

He said that these detainees, who had been arrested by India’s notorious agencies including the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the last several years and presently lodged in Indian and IIOJK jails including the New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, have been implicated in fabricated cases.

The spokesman pointed out that all the Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders and activists detained in jails were political prisoners, and, therefore, it was the responsibility of the United Nations and international human rights organisations to take cognizance of the miserable plight of these detainees.

He made it clear that Jammu and Kashmir was an internationally recognised disputed territory and that peace and stability could not be established in the region till resolving the dispute in line with the resolutions of the United Nations and the wishes of the Kashmiris.

The APHC spokesman further said that the Kashmiri people were determined to carry forward their freedom struggle and the mission of their martyrs despite facing the worst kind of Indian state terrorism.