Qaisar Mansoor
On 31 March 2022, a six years old Kashmiri Muslim residence of Vicher Nag, Srinagar was raped by ‘Kashmiri Pundit’ Amit Amberdar. Father of the girl approached Saura Police Station for registration of FIR where he was initially abused and beaten by the Police and was threatened to hide the incident. Later FIR number 27/2022 was registered in the Police Station.
Human history is replete with wars and conflicts that cause deaths, destruction and pile miseries on the vanquished or subjugated people. The painful reality about them is that sexual violence against women and girls is often employed as a weapon of war and as a tactic to brutalise, humiliate, dominate and instil fear.
In the modern era it has been used extensively in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cambodia, Uganda, Vietnam, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Kashmir. According to UNICEF, systematic rape is also often used as a tool in ethnic cleansing. Regrettably, this has been happening and continues to happen notwithstanding a number of UN resolutions, international humanitarian law and international human rights law under which states have accepted obligations to discourage and shun the use of rape in wars and conflicts.
The reason is that powerful nations, which wield tremendous influence in the management of international affairs and are also a force to be reckoned with in relation to the role of UN in peacekeeping and preventing such detestable and inhuman practices – in pursuance of their strategic and commercial interests – not only obstruct the resolution of certain conflicts but also abet such crimes by looking the other way. Palestine and Kashmir are classic examples of this indifference by the powers that be.
The conflict in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) dates back to 1989 when, frustrated by the Indian intransigence to allow the people of Kashmir to exercise their right of self-determination as enshrined in the UN resolutions, they launched a freedom movement. Since January 1990, the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been the site of a brutal conflict between Indian security forces and armed freedom fighters. In its efforts to crush the freedom movement, India has been pursuing a policy of repression in Kashmir which has resulted in massive human rights violations by the Indian army and paramilitary forces.
They have enjoyed impunity for these brutalities under Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1990.The law provides sweeping powers to soldiers, including the power to shoot to kill in certain situations and to arrest people without warrants. They also provide virtual immunity from prosecution. The law has facilitated grave human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, rape and torture and ill treatment of the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).
There are authentic reports that the Indian security forces have killed more than one hundred thousand Kashmiris since 1989 to April 2020. The number of women raped and gangraped stands at 11170, besides 22913 women who were widowed.
Independent sources including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch have been regularly compiling reports and providing testimony in regards to extensive abuse of human rights in IOK particularly indulgence in rape of women by the personnel of the Indian security forces.
At the 52nd United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Professor William Baker gave testimony that rape in IOK was not merely a case of isolated incidents involving undisciplined soldiers rather the security forces were actively using rape against the Kashmiri populace as a method of humiliation and frightening. An Amnesty International report in 1992 stated that rape was conducted during counter-offensives against militants as part of a bid to methodically shame local Kashmiri communities.
