KASHMIR: Obstacles continue for women reporting rape

Verghese in his book “First Draft” outlined his assessment of the situation: “Apart from the glaring gaps and contradictions in the evidence, the video recording carefully staged two to three months after the alleged event, had obviously been made for propaganda purposes. Our committee concluded that the reports of human rights excesses investigated by it had been grossly exaggerated or invented,” he said. Later in an interview about his writings he explained the book was a collection of stores he had written “at that time,” sharing that the report was “a worm’s eye-view of history as an individual saw it.”

But there have been expert doubts in credibility in India media and the PCI report. Teresa Joseph with the South Asia Forum for Human Rights described the PCI report as “Another instance of the Indian press’ selective reporting on Kashmir” in a recent detailed analysis of India’s media coverage of atrocities.

But what about the women? And what about their suffering?

A 1994 study carried out by the Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for Peace and Disarmament (KWIPD), found that families of rape victims at Kunan Poshpora did not show much empathy toward the women who had suffered rape; families even at times exhibited resentment against a rape survivor’s suffering.

“I had begged before my husband to forgive me for the sin that I never committed. But, he refused to accept me saying that I was ‘unclean,’ whether by choice or by imposition,” said one of the victims from Kunan Poshpora.

For 3 years after the incident, not a single marriage proposal had been received for any woman, raped or not, in Kunan Poshpora village revealed the Women’s Initiative (KWIPD).

Women who have been raped often experience symptoms similar to those who have experienced war stress. Trauma, hopelessness and depression for months, years and even decades can continue after a severe sexual assault has occurred.

Today teenage girls in Kashmir are in a strong grip with a fear of violence. Prominent sociologist Professor Bashir Ahmad Dabla attributes this fear to the heavy presence of military in the region. “A sudden look at a trooper gives a shock to a woman,” Dabla says.

“Keeping an eye” on Kashmir, UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom’s UN office is now collecting information suggesting that over the years “we have received reports from people in Kashmir about sexual violence.”

The harmful impact of rape violence and its long range in many years of psychological damage cannot be completely or easily measured though.

“We recommend the establishment of a special judicial authority making an independent and thorough inquiry into all allegations of human rights violations, including disappearances, custodial killings, rape, torture, including torture of prisoners, fake encounters, and all other cases related to excesses by security forces,” said an Independent People’s Tribunal organized by the Human Rights Law Network in February 2010.

In March 2011 demonstrations outside the United Nations building in Geneva brought voice to those who are still hoping for the Indian government to fully investigate the rape crimes of Kunan Poshpora village in Indian held Kashmir. To date those who are guilty have not been prosecuted for the alleged crimes that happened in Kunan Poshpora.

Other extreme cases of rape violence in 2009, known as the Shopian case, brought corruption and destruction of evidence to the case as a crimes forensic lab and security officers, including a district police chief and three other police officers, were suspended for obstructing justice and falsifying details in the case.

The case involved the murder and rape of 17-year-old Asiya Jan and her 22-year-old pregnant sister-in-law Neelofar Jan. As false reports were originally released by the corrupt authorities in an attempt to close the case before objective investigations could be made, public uproar and street protests broke out across in the town of Shopian and in the capital of Kashmir in Srinagar.

Admitting that the “full scale” of sexual crimes will never likely be known since many cases remain unreported, UN Special Representative Margot Wallstrom understands the social dynamic that causes women not to report rape. “It has become such a way of life in some conflict zones that many victims are simply too afraid to report it and you can understand that,” Wallstrom said recently.

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A harrowing excerpt from the film, “When the Storm Came.” Filmmaker Shilpi Gupta’s award-winning documentary shows the impact of conflict, war and violence on women in Kashmir as they face the family stigma of rape. Showing members from the village of Kunan Pushpora, the Indian Kashmiri women continue to endure, survive and love life in spite of the ongoing stress and conflict trauma that still exists in the region.

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For more information on this topic:

“Independent People’s Tribunal on Human Rights Violations – torture, custodial killings & rapes in Kashmir,” Human Rights Law Network and ANHAD, February 20-21, 2010;

“Kashmir Human Rights and the Indian Press,” South Asia Forum on Human Rights, Teresa Joseph, March 2000;

“Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 – India,” UNHCR | Refworld via Human Rights Watch, January 1992;

“Conflict in the Indian Kashmir Valley II: psychosocial impact,” Conflict and Health- BioMed, November 2008.

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With a post-graduate degree in mass communications and journalism from University of Kashmir in Srinagar, Women News Network correspondent in Indian Kashmir, Aliya Bashir, is an investigative journalist reporting issues to “get closer to the facts” covering human rights, women’s rights and civil society. Her work can be seen in Kashmir Life, The Guardian News, Hindustan Times and Kashmir Newsline as well as other publications.

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