ISLAMABAD
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) expressing serious concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir has said that India is using violence against women as a weapon of war to crush the Kashmiris’ struggle for the rights to self-determination.
According to Kashmir Media Service, this has been stated by APHC chairman Masarrat Aalam Butt in a message from New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail shared by his spokesman Advocate Abdul Rashid Minhas in Srinagar. Indian troops had gang-raped around 100 women of all ages on the night of February 23 1991 during a siege and search operation in Kunan poshpora area of Kupwara district.
Since 2014, February 23 has been observed every year as the Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day, a call for which was, first, given by the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society and supported by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
Masarrat Aalam Butt in his message from New Delhi’s Tihar jail said that Indian troops enjoyed impunity under draconian law Armed Forces Special Powers, were involved in heinous war crimes in the territory.
Butt said the Indian military is using disgrace, harassment and molestation of women as a weapon of war to humiliate the Kashmiri people and break their resolve for Kashmir resolution. He urged the international human rights organizations to take practical steps to provide justice to the victims of the mass rape tragedy.
Other APHC leaders including Zamruda Habib, Yasmeen Raja, Fareeda Behanji, Mohammad Yousuf Naqash, Khadim Hussain, Syed Sibte Shabbir Qummi and Abdul Samad Inqilabi in their statements in Sriangar sought investigation by the International War Crimes Tribunal to bring the culprit troops to book as the Kashmiris have lost faith in the Indian judiciary. Meanwhile, the acting chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party Mehmood Ahmad Saghar in a statement in Islamabad said that termed the tragedy a blot on India’s so-called democracy. He lamented that, despite ample evidence, not a single perpetrator has been punished, demanding strict action against those responsible.
