Human Rights Day comes and goes, Kashmir suffers in silence

By : Ishfaq-ul-Hassan

Haneefa Akhthar (name changed), 23, wanted to forget the horror of her past when she got married last year. Destiny, however, had other things in store for her: Haneefa’s husband divorced her just six months after marriage because of social stigma and the gynecological problem she suffered during torture in Indian police custody.

Haneefa was allegedly kicked in her abdomen during interrogation in the Indian force's custody when she was a ninth class student in 2004. “I have got 22 stitches in my abdomen. I suffered blood loss as my uterus was impaired due to the kicking by the Indian officer,” she said

The Indian forces had allegedly picked her up suspecting her of knowing one of the boys accused of killing of a resident of her village in Kupwara district.

She later approached the state human rights commission, which awarded Rs 75,000 compensation to them. “But the police officers were not even touched,” she lamented.

Haneefa’s case is just the tip of the iceberg of human rights abuses in the strife-torn state.

Take the case of 51-year-old Manzoor Ahmad Naikoo of Pahalallan-Pattan who was tortured to the extent that his genitals were burnt and stick inserted into his rectum making him debilitated permanently.

Naikoo, a shopkeeper, was picked up during an army crackdown in his village in 1991 when he was 30.

“They demanded a gun from me. I pleaded that I am shopkeeper but they did not listen. I was taken to a government school building where they first stripped me then tied a cloth on my genitals and set it on fire. Later they dipped my head into a bucket of water and inserted a stick into my rectum,” he said.

The worst was yet to come. Some youth mustered courage and took him to hospital where colostomy procedure was done so that he could pass stool through a hole made in his abdomen. “For the last 21 years, my abdomen is having a hole which leaks stool. I though cover it with my cotton but I can’t go anywhere,” he said.
Naikoo approached the court which directed the state and the Centre to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation. “But the culprits have not been brought to book,” said the father of three.

Human rights groups say the police and security forces use torture as an instrument to choke the voice of dissent in the state. “Torture is widespread in Kashmir which has gone unreported. Torture has made people permanently disabled,” said Khurram Parvez, programme coordinator Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

Published @ DNA