Dr Syed Ali Mujtaba
FIVE brave Kashmiri women scholars have come up with a book “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora.” The book is about the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape which took place in 1991 in the Kupwara district in Kashmir.
The book, edited by Essar Batool and published by Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia and first published in 2015, is now running into its paperback edition. It deals with the gender violence in conflict zones.
“This book is about one night in two villages in Kashmir. It is about a night that has refused to end for 24 long years, a night that holds stories of violations, injustice, oppression, and falsehood, as well as acts of courage, bravery, and truth. This book is about Kunan Poshpora,” reads the preface of the book.
The five fearless authors began to unearth documentary evidence of the truth by sitting through a web of lies and botched-up investigations, and by painstakingly building a bridge of trust and hope between the victims/survivors of Kunan and Poshpora villages. The authors, while narrating the mass rape by the Indian army in two villages Kunan and Poshpora, give a candid account of various courts of law where justice is meant to be dispensed.
The authors have gathered information from the survivors’ local administration and eyewitnesses as to what happened on the night of 23 February 1991, when the Indian soldiers from the 4 Rajputana Rifles regiment gang-raped around 23 women of Kunan and Poshpora villages.
According to Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, of the World Kashmir Awareness Forum, “the Indian Army has gang-raped over 10,000 women, even brides on the way to their new homes since 1991.”
He adds: “The women of Kashmir, especially those who have been violated against their will, only hope that the CEDAW and UN Special Rapporteur will take note of their sufferings.
“The women of Kashmir wonder what action was taken by the UN ‘Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women,’ whose mandate included action on “state-sponsored violence against women.”
The Indian Army and the Government of India have denied all these allegations.
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Dr Syed Ali Mujtaba is a Chennai-based journalist. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com
