JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Five brave Kashmiri women scholars from Kashmir have come up with a book “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora“

Essar, Ifrah, Samreena, Munaza, Natasha, five brave Kashmiri women scholars, have come up with a book “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora.”

This book is about the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape, which took place in 1991 in Kupwara district in Kashmir.

The book is edited by Essar Batool and published by Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia.

The book published in 2015 for the first time is now running into its paperback edition is about gender violence in conflict zones.

“This book is about one night in two villages in Kashmir. It is about a night that has refused to end for 24 long years, a night that holds stories of violations, injustice, oppression, and falsehood, as well as acts of courage, bravery, and truth. This book is about Kunan Poshpora,” reads the preface of the book.

The five fearless authors began to unearthing documentary evidence of the truth by sitting through a web of lies and botched-up investigations, and by painstakingly building a bridge of trust and hope between the victims/survivors of Kunan and Poshpora villages.

The author’s while narrating the mass rape by the Indian army in two villages Kunan-Poshpora gives a candid account of various courts of law where justice is meant to be dispensed.

The authors have gathered information from the survivors’ local administration and eyewitnesses as to what happened on the night of 23 February 1991, when the Indian soldiers from the 4 Rajputana Rifles regiment gang-raped around 23 women of Kunan and Poshpora villages.

According to Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, the Secretary-General, of the World Kashmir Awareness Forum, “The Indian Army has gang-raped over 10,000 women, even brides on the way to their new homes since 1991.”

“The women of Kashmir, especially those who have been violated against their will, only hope that the CEDAW and UN Special Rapporteur will take note of their sufferings.

“The women of Kashmir wonder what action was taken by the UN ‘Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women,’ whose mandate included action on “state-sponsored violence against women”, he added.

The Indian Army and the Government of India have denied all these allegations.

[The writer, Syed Ali Mujtaba, is a Journalist based in Chennai. He can be reached at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com.]

source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> Book Review / by Syed Ali Mujtaba / October 16th, 2024