Daily Times

MUZAFFARABAD: Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir (PHJ&K)on Tuesday organized a sit-in protest against atrocities in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

A large number of women participated in the protest. The protestor, holding banners inscribed with stated Anti-India statements, chanted anti-India slogans to raise the issue of harassment and arrest of Kashmiri women in IIOJ&K. Speakers on the occassion, leader PHJ&K said Kashmiri women were facing cruelty of Indian forces. They maintained that the figures released by international organizations, 11,255 women had been sexually assaulted in the last 32 years particularly the Kunanposhpura and Shopian tragedies.

Speakers said in the last three decades, the Indian forces compelled more than 2100 women in occupied Kashmir to live a life as semi-widows, whose husbands had been abducted from their homes many years ago.  They said Indian forces attacked hundreds of Kashmiri women and girls, adding, Hiba Nisar and Insha Mushtaq were among the victims of Indian atrocities.

The silence of other international human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Asia Watch on India’s open terrorism and aggression was a question mark to the world itself.  The speakers said the United Nations and other organizations including OIC should put pressure on India to stop oppressing Kashmiri women.

The women demanded independence and the right to self-determination according to UN resolutions. Chairman Pasban-e-Hurriyat Uzair Ahmad Ghazali, Director Kashmir Liberation Cell Raja Sajjad Latif Khan, Mehnaz Qureshi, Iqra Usman, Natasha Nazir, Usman Ali Hashim, Muhammad Altaf Minhas, Khawaja Mohammad Sadiq, Liaquat Ali Rana, Faisal Farooq, Muhammad Fayyaz Khan, Hafiz Gohar Rehman and others also addressed on the occasion.