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Examples of Indian
atrocities in Kashmir
"As the conflict in Kashmir enters its
fourth year, central and state authorities have done little to
stop the widespread practice of rape by Indian security forces in
Kashmir. Indeed, when confronted with the evidence of rape, time
and again the authorities have attempted to impugn the integrity
of the witnesses, discredit the testimony of physicians or simply
deny the charges everything except order a full inquiry and
prosecute those responsible for rape".
(Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, May 09, 1993)
"Since January 1990, rape by Indian occupation forces has
become more frequent. Rape most often occurs during crackdowns,
cordon and search operations during which men are held for
identification in parks or schoolyards while security forces
search their homes. In raping them, the security forces are
attempting to punish and humiliate the entire community."
('Pain in Kashmir: A Crime of War' issued jointly by Asia
Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, May 09, 1993)
"By beginning TV cameras and prohibiting the presence in
Kashmir of the International Red Cross and of human rights
organization, the Indian authorities have tried to keep Kashmir
out of the news."
(`Kashmiri crisis at the flash point', The Washington Times,
by columnist Cord Meyer, April 23, 1993)
"(On February 23, 1991), at least 23 women were reportedly
raped in their homes at gunpoint (at Kunan Poshpora in Kashmir).
Some are said to have been gang-raped, others to have been raped
in front of their children ... The youngest victim was a girl of
13 named Misra, the oldest victim, name Jana, was aged 80".
(Amnesty International, March 1992)
"The most common torture methods are severe beatings,
sometimes while the victim is hung upside down, and electric
shocks. People have also been crushed with heavy rollers, burned,
stabbed with sharp instruments, and had objects such as chilies
or thick sticks forced into their rectums. Sexual mutilation has
been reported".
(Amnesty International, March 1992)
"The worst outrages by the CRPF (Central Reserve Police
Force) have been frequent gang rapes of all women in Muslim
villages, followed by the execution of the men".
(Eric Margolis, The Ottawa Citizen, December 8, 1991)
"While army troops dragged men from their homes for
questioning in the border town of Kunan Pushpura, scores of women
say they were raped by soldiers....a pregnant Kashmiri woman, who
was raped and kicked, gave birth to a son with a broken
arm."
(Melinda Liuin, Newsweek, June 24, 1991)
[Anthony Wood and Ron MaCullagh of the Sundav Observer (June 02,
1992) estimated that over 500 Indian army men were involved in
this orgy of rape and plunder in Kunan Pushpura.]
"The security forces have entered hospitals, beaten
patients, hit doctors, entered operating theaters, smashed
instruments. Ambulances have been attacked, curfew passes are
confiscated."
(Asia Watch, May 1991)
"Subjugated, humiliated, tortured and killed by the
650,000-strong Indian army, the people of Kashmir have been
living through sheer hell for more than a year, the result of an
increasingly brutal campaign of state repression. India hides
behind its carefully-crafted image of "non-violence"
and presents itself in international forums as a model of
democracy and Pluralism. Yet, it is unable to stand up the
scrutiny of even its admirers. All journalists, especially
television crews, were expelled from the Valley. With no
intrusive cameras to record the brutalities of the Indian forces,
the world has been kept largely in the dark." (The
Toronto Star, January 25, 1991)
"Young girls were now being raped systematically by entire
(Indian) army units rather than by a single soldier as before.
Girls are taken to soldier's camps and held naked in their tents
for days on end. Many never return home....Women are strung up
naked from trees and their breast lacerated with knives, as the
(Indian) soldiers tell them that their breast will never give
milk again to a newborn militant. Women are raped in front of
their husbands and children, or paraded naked through villages
and beaten on the breasts."
(The Independent, September 18, 1990)
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