India using molestation of Kashmiri women as weapon of war: APHC

Masarrat Alam Butt, the Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference who is currently behind bars, has expressed his regret that India is using the molesting of women in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir as a weapon of war to stifle the freedom movement of the Kashmiris.

According to Kashmir Media Service, Masarrat Alam Butt strongly denounced the atrocities committed by Indian troops against the women in IIOJK in a message sent from the notorious Tihar prison in New Delhi on the eve of International Women’s Day. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, he urged Kashmiris and those who support them to speak out in favor of Kashmiri mothers, sisters, and daughters and to take action to bring the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, and international human rights organizations’ attention to the situation.

He said that the Indian forces’ personnel had gang-raped and tortured women in Chhanapura area of Srinagar in March 1990 after the Kashmiris intensified their freedom struggle.

The APHC Chairman said India has violated all international laws related to women’s rights through the worst state oppression and violence on Kashmiri women.

He said that due to the presence of 10 lac Indian soldiers in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the Kashmiri women are forced to live under constant fear. He said the Kashmiri women have been bravely fighting the Indian atrocities for the last several decades.

He said that even, today, many innocent Kashmiri women leaders and activists including Aasiya Andrabi, Fehmeeda Sofi and Naheeda Nasreen are lodged in Indian jails.

Masarrat Alam Butt said that the brutal incidents of Kunanposhpora mass rape, the rape and murder of two young women of Shopian Aasiya and Neelofar and gang-rape and murder of 8-year-old Asifa Bano in Kathua are glaring examples of Indian brutalities on the women in IIOJK.