22 yrs on, Kunan Poshpora rape survivors still await justice - Kashmir Times

22 yrs on, Kunan Poshpora rape survivors still await justice - Kashmir Times

SRINAGAR, Feb 23 (Agencies): Twenty-two long years have passed but the memories of Kunan Poshpora mass rape on the intervening night of February 23-24 in 1991 are still alive in the minds of the Kashmiri people as the victims still await justice. Iqbal, a resident of Kunan Poshpora, in a media interview vividly recalled the night when over 50 women of his village were raped by Indian troops. He clearly remembers the night when the whole village lay silent in sleep, as heavy snowfall had wrapped the hamlet. He still remembers how the frightening cries and wails of women broke the silence of the deadly night. Iqbal said that he and his family had finished dinner and were lying in bed when at around 11:00pm, the troops barged into the houses of the village. “We did not know what was happening around until the forces entered our houses. They ordered all men to leave,” Iqbal said. The men were ordered to move out of their homes while children, threatened by the scenes, ran out of the houses. The entire male population was driven away from the village. While many were subjected to questioning and beating, others became victim of brutal interrogation. With the male population herded away from the village, only women and young girls were left in the houses. With no men to guard, the troopers raped over 50 young and old women and for the whole night men knew nothing about the gruesome happenings in the village. “The men folk were kept away all night from the village. It was at 10.30 in the morning of February 24 that the cordon was lifted. When we returned home, every family was shattered. We found that women in every house had been raped,” said Iqbal, whose sister-in-law, mother of two children, was also one of the rape victims. “We all men went about the whole village and noticed that troopers had sexually assaulted women in every house,” Iqbal said. The troopers did not lift the cordon for three consecutive days after the incident to prevent the rape victims and their family members from lodging complaints or FIRs against the army men, he said. Iqbal deplored that despite the passage of 22 years the men in uniform involved in the heinous crime were not brought to justice.