India using sexual violence as tool to suppress Kashmiris’ just struggle

Kashmiri women are the worst victims of Indian troops’ atrocities in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir as BJP-led Indian government is using rape as a weapon to suppress the Kashmiris’ righteous political demand of right to self-determination.

A report released by Sharp Media Network on the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, today, revealed that Indian forces’ personnel had sexually assaulted over 11,263 women during the last 36 years in the occupied territory.

It said India is deliberately targeting women in IIOJK to humiliate and terrorize the Kashmiris. It said like Kunanposhpora mass rape, Shopian double rape and murder, and rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua depict the brutal face of Indian forces deployed in the occupied territory.

Around a hundred women were gang-raped by Indian troops during a cordon and search operation in Kunanposhpora area of Kupwara district on the night of February 23, 1991. Two females, Aasiya and Neelofar of Shopian, were abducted by Indian men in uniform on May 29, 2009, gang-raped and subsequently killed in custody. Their bodies were recovered from a shallow stream in the area the next morning.