Qaisar Mansoor
Thirty-one years have passed since the 1991 incident in which Indian army soldiers allegedly raped between 23 and 100 women in Kashmir’s Kunan and Poshpora villages during a search operation.
The Indian army has denied the accusations and a delayed investigation of the incident concluded that the allegations were “worthless” and no one was prosecuted for the alleged crimes.
As per 2012, Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission report, members of Indian security forces “turned into beasts” forcefully entered into houses and “gagged the mouths of the victims and committed forced gang rape against their will and consent”.
Even minor girls as young as eight years of age were not spared. Prominent Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez said, “The case has been lying in three courts and although the State Human Rights Commission found all the allegation to be true, there has been no judgement yet.” A book – Do you remember Kunan Poshpora? exhaustively documents aspects related to the incident.
In the book, amongst many gory accounts, one of the survivors shared her story: “Three army men caught hold of me and 8-10 army men raped me in turns. They had huge battery torches with them and they used them to see my naked body, while making lewd remarks”. Many independent investigations and fact finding missions (including the one led by a former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court – Justice Bahauddin Farooqi) have concluded that Kunan Poshpora case has seen unprecedented proportions of ignorance with regards to normal investigative procedures that must be followed after such a crime.
There are other official documents that scream of the army’s excesses. Justice Verma Committee report says that brutalities committed by armed forces have led to a “deep disenchantment” due to the serious allegations of “persistent sexual assault” in areas of conflict. It further noted that impunity for systematic or isolated sexual violence is being legitimized by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA).
Additionally, the committee strongly recommended certain amendments for existing criminal laws and AFSPA, but the government has taken little action on those specific points. Although, after the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 includes armed forces under Section 376(2)(c) of the Indian Penal Code; accountability is still missing from the cases tried in military courts. Army officials are not immune under AFSPA if they sexually assault women or commit rape. Section 7 of the Act provides protection from prosecution for “anything done…in exercise of the powers conferred”.
