KASHMIR : RAPE EN MASSE | Ayesha Kagal

On the 10th and 11th August 1990, the army soldiers, rank and file hovering around Pazi Pora, Bali Pora, Konun and others seemed to have been overtaken by vengeance, greed, lust and revenge. They would shoot anyone:- a passer by; a farmer; a teenage boy; an aged man; an old woman or a outh busy with his vocation. The jawans (Indian soldiers) were seen carrying bottles of liquor in their pockets and guns in their hands. More than a company descended on Pazi Pora and isolated forcily women folk from children and men, against the protests and weeping and wailing. Most of the cowmen had run for safety to the forest, but still 20 to 30 women were lodged in a spacious house. The army jawans got a scent of their presence, and pounced on them like vultures. All of them were brought out from their hiding place and 10-15 robust, attractive and healthy women were isolated between the age of seven years and fifty years. One group of lusty soldiers tore their clothes to shreds and rendered them nude. A bonfire was made of thier dresses and other garments at the edge of a field of rice. Committee members found the remnants of burnt clothes even after a week. Another group gulping liquor from bottles jumped over them and took them back to the same hiding place from where they were forced out, there they were raped. A seven-year old girl who was raped was still bleeding five days after the horrific ordeal. The group took their turns raping while crying slogans of "F#%## hind" and so on! [Reproduced "Kashmir Aflame", vol.1&2, Aug. 1990, Tahreek-e-Hurriyet-e-Kashmir].

Rapes and sodomy are very common. Soldiers rape young girls and young boys in the presence of family members. Leeches are often placed on genitals. Family members are woefully forced to rape other members of the family. To humiliate and disintegrate the person, soldiers will squeeze the breasts and genitals, insert metal rods and live cigarettes inside the vagina and rectum. Detainees are forced to perform oral sex on soldiers and to swallow the ejaculate.

In an army firing in Sonar bazaar, two lanes away in the mohalla, a bullet ripped through the face of Mushtaq Malik, a twenty-one year old first B.com student who also attended stenography classes. His family confirmed Mushtaq's death when they identified his wristwatch, after he had been buried. [Ayesha Kagal, Sunday Review Times of Indian, New Dehlis, April 29, 1990]