Shopian Cover Up.

Excerpts from a report by The Independent Women’s Initiative for Justice

In the afternoon of 29 May, 2009, two young women left home for their orchard. Neelofar and Asiya were sisters-in-law. Neelofar had married Asiya’s brother Shakeel, and had an infant son. Asiya a schoolgoing teenager aspired to become an engineer. In the evening Shakeel learnt that Neelofar and Asiya had not returned home. These are trying times in Kashmir, and there is much cause for concern when people do not return home before dark. Shakeel began his search with friends and family. As night set in, Shakeel sought the help of the police and together they scoured the countryside.

The way to the orchard is crowded with the security forces - the District Police Lines, an army outpost and a CRPF camp, with night lights. The Rambi Ara Nallah that runs through is clearly visible to the lookouts in the CRPF camp, under the glare of the search lights. Before the Justice Jan Commission, the night guards, stated they had seen the search party, but conveniently noticed nothing for the rest of the night, and had no explanation for the mysterious appearance of the bodies.

The police called off the search at 2.30 a.m. promising to restart at the crack of dawn. Around 5.30 a.m. Shakeel resumed the search. An hour later the local police joined and almost immediately the SHO Shafeeq Ahmed pointed out the spot where Neelofar’s body was found. Neelofar’s body was found at a shallow spot which is located about 100 mtrs upstream from Zavora bridge over the Rambi Ara Nallah.

It was observed by Justice Jan in the First Spot Inspection that the depth of the stream around the spot would be 2 -2.5 feet, with reasonably fast flowing water, but certainly not strong current to drown an adult girl. It is pertinent to note that this exact spot had been thoroughly searched by the family and police till 2:30a.m.

Asiya’s body was found further downstream, 1.5 km from the army camp. The exact spot is 1.5 km down stream from Zavora bridge. The dead body was found at an elevated dry spot in the stream. Those who helped retrieve the bodies of the two women saw enough to suspect that this was a case of rape and murder. The photographs taken of the bodies as they were recovered from the Nallah showed visible signs of injuries and wounds. When the bodies reached the hospital, there were two post-mortems performed on them to determine the cause of death and any antecedent injuries. It was put out by the police that the deaths were caused by drowning although the first post mortem report itself had negated drowning as the cause of death of the two women.

Whenever a crime occurs, what leads the investigator to the accused are a series of material, forensic, scientific, medical, circumstantial and ocular evidence. The diligent collection and professional analysis of these pieces of evidence enable the whodunit to be solved. Similarly the mystery surrounding the killing of 2 young women in Shopian could have been unraveled by piecing together the clues.

However at every stage those responsible for unmasking the culprit/s, have systematically and deliberately destroyed, tampered, diluted, the evidence and thus misdirected and obfuscated the investigation. The truth of this damning statement is borne out by the facts enumerated below:

• The spots from where the bodies of Neelofar and Asiya • were recovered were not preserved or cordoned off by SHO Shafeeq Ahmed and SI Gazi Abdul Kareem and no instructions to that effect were given by the S.P. Javed Mattoo. Evidence relating to vehicle tyre marks, footprints was not gathered, these could have provided a vital trail leading to the accused. No instructions were given by the S.P or SHO to photograph the bodies. No detailed or accurate site plan of the spot was prepared. For instance the motorable approach road into the Rambi Ara Nallah is conveniently not marked. Again relevant details such as the depth, width of the stream and the speed of the current were left out.

• Neither the S.P. Javed Mattoo nor the Dy. S.P. went to the spot to supervise the investigation.The S.P.,Dy S.P. and SHO • all three admitted before the Jan Commission that contrary to the settled position of law they did not issue instructions for registration of the F.I.R

• Clothes of the deceased women were not seized nor was any material collected from the spot where the bodies were found. The S.P also admitted that the visible injury of a large size on the head of Asiya was not measured.

The town rose as one to challenge what they saw as an attempt to cover up a crime. Shopian shut down for 48 days. The government had to set up a Commission of Inquiry, an SIT and the High Court had to interest itself in the matter before the town resumed a semblance of the everyday. Majlis-e-Mashawarat, comprising of the elders of Shopian led the demand for justice to the victims, their families and for the assurance of safety to all women of Shopian. The valley joined the call for justice.

6 months later, the CBI reportedly claims that what happened that night was a case of drowning. No one is to blame.

The drowning theory that the CBI is floating does not hold water, for the following reasons:

Neelofar’s body was found in the very place where the police and family had looked for them the last thing the previous night. That is, it was not there at 2.30 a.m., but was found at about 6 o’clock. And no one admitting to having seen it happen despite the high security in the area. Where were the women till then? In hiding? Why? Guard Commander B.B. Kumar and Pradeep Kumar admitted before the Justice Jan Commission that they had instructions to report any suspicious movement in the Nallah during the intervening night of 29-30th May, 2009, but had noticed no suspicious movement of vehicles in the nallah from 2:00a.m. – 4:00a.m. There has been no report or “leak” of the CBI, further questioning these 2 night guards.

• The only test performed on both the bodies was the lung flotation test, performed by Dr. Bilal during the first postmortem on 30th May, 2009, which negated the possibility of death by drowning. When IWIJ met the CB-CID, at their insistence, a post-mortem report was flaunted before us, which did not bear the endorsement that drowning had been conclusively ruled out. Why did the police and Shopian administration announce drowning as the cause of death despite medical evidence to the contrary? Why were senior officers trying to convince us of drowning even after three months through an uncertified post mortem report? The drowning theory however continues to resurface and the CBI leaks are once again trying to resuscitate it.

• All the officers of the department advanced the theory of death by drowning with full knowledge and belief that no one in the recent or past history of Shopian has died due to drowning in River Rambi Ara.

• The Shopian Bar Association had during the course of it’s independent fact finding found 2 public witnesses viz. Abdul Rashid and Ghulam Mohi-ud- Din. On 29th May, 2009 around 7:30 -8:00 p.m., these 2 men just after crossing the Zavora bridge on Rambi Ara Nallah, saw a blue colour 407 police truck with khaki tarpal on the left side of the road, in which 2 girls were shouting ‘Mouji Mouji’. The eight uniformed men guarding the front and rear of the truck abused, threatened and forced these two witnesses to flee from the spot.

• All witnesses who may testify to a cause of death other than drowning have been systematically compromised. Significantly witnesses who did not support the drowning theory have reportedly under sustained interrogation from the CBI changed their stance.

As for accidental drowning, of two women, in such shallows, in a nallah where no one in recent or living memory has ever drowned – we would need to be more than merely credulous to believe that possible! While available evidence has been manipulated and distorted, crucial material, circumstantial,ocular and forensic evidence was deliberately never collected and allowed to be destroyed, lest the tell tale signs point an accusing finger.

Rapes with Impunity

Indian forces and paramilitary militias working with them have been responsible for rape throughout the conflict. Although the cases are created but most of them are never heard, and those which are heard are delayed and apparently denied.Reports of rape from Doda and other border areas have increased since the crackdown in these areas began in 1997.

The case of Sameera illustrates the army's practice of assaulting villagers in punishment because they believe they have supported the militants, or as a means of terrorizing them so that they will not do so. Sameera about fifty, a resident of Ludna, Doda, told Human Rights Watch that on October 5, 1998, the Eighth Rashtriya Rifles came to her house and took her, her husband and her eight-month-old grandson to their base in the village of Charote, some fifteen kilometers away. There they were separated. She said:

They began beating me. They said that we had been feeding the militants. They used electric shocks on my feet. I was raped. They stripped off my clothes and said they would kill me. There were many soldiers and a captain. The captain raped me, keeping everyone else outside. He told me: "You are Muslims, and you will all be treated like this." He was a Hindu, but he told me that he was a Muslim, and that his name was Shahnawaz. He forced me to confess that I had been feeding the militants. This happened on the first night. I was there for fifteen days. Then we were released.

Ten days after their arrest, while the family was still in Charote, Sameera's daughter, daughter-in-law and son were arrested and taken to another army base in Gundna village, where they were held for two days before being released.

When the family returned to their home they discovered that all of their belongings had been taken, including Rs. 10,000 [U.S.$ 250] and jewelry. At the time that Human Rights Watch interviewed Sameera., she had not yet filed a police report but had received medical treatment from a local practitioner. She stated that she was still in pain.

Residents of Marmal, Doda, told Human Rights Watch that in early October 1998 the army cordoned off some twenty villages in the area for fifteen days and during that time took some of the local women to the army camp. Although the women did not talk about what had happened to them, from their behavior the other residents believed that a number of them had been raped.

They are looking for the militants. But they are unable to find any. So they harass the local population .... Our womenfolk are taken into the army camp, all separately. They round up the women, then take two or three in the evening. They come back after two or three days. They are very shy then, and don't want to talk about what has happened to them. The army has pressured them not to speak about what happened.

(Names have been Changed)

The Rape of Loura Jane

She had arrived in Srinagar on October 7th, 1990, from a trip to Ladakh and was lodged in a houseboat on the banks of Dal Lake along with her three friends. Little did she know of the fate that awaited her in Srinagar.


Born in 1966, 24-year old Miss Loura Jane Lambie, a Canadian agricultural science student was on a stroll on October 11th on the boulevard in Srinagar when it was just getting towards darkness. Near the Centaur Hotel, she was having a chat with three local boys asking them about what was going on in Kashmir and was immediately waylaid by personnel of the Indian National Security Guards (MSG) traveling in a white Maruti van. They were armed with automatic weapons and were also carrying a walkie talkie with them. One of them, tall but slim, warned Loura not to get into conversation with local Muslim youths, "All of them are very dangerous terrorists and can also molest you at this desolate spot", he told her.


When the guards asked as to whom she was, she replied, "A Canadian". "You shall have to accompany us to the police station," and thus Loura was asked to board the vehicle. Instead of any police station, Loura was taken to the Oberoi Palace Hotel where the guards had a drink from their own bottles because the bar in the Hotel was closed. She did not drink though she was invited to do so. The guards then ordered her to go back to the houseboat at that late hour, for the Kashmiri militants could kill her at any spot. The guards also took away her purse. Loura was taken to a garden near Chasma Shahi. It was 1am on October 12.


One of the guards directed loura to undress but she did not oblige. Her clothes were then torn and she was laid on the ground and gang raped. She cried under the open sky but there was no one to listen to her moans and shrieks except the sleeping state governor, Girish Saxena, in Raj Bhavan, which is situated only a few hundred yards from the scene of the incident. For a change, Loura was taken to another adjacent garden and the gang rape by five guards of the helpless victim continued. Finally, she fell unconscious.


A semi-conscious Loura was then dropped on the roadside, at a slight distance away from where she had been picked up the previous evening. On being sighted by the locals, she was carried to the police station at Nehru Park where a case for kidnapping and rape was registered under sections 366 and 376 of the Ranbir Penal Code under First Information Report No. 90/40. The police officers at the station recommended a medical examination of the victim and Loura was taken to Lal Ded Women's hospital in Srinagar."All Indian men are scoundrels, I'll not permit you to examine me", - Loura shouted at the male doctor in the hospital. Two female doctors then examined her ascertaining that dead sperms were found in her uterus and in the passage leading to it. There were scratches on her thighs, arms and breasts, which only testify that she resisted.


Loura Jane Lambie told pressmen that very day how brutally "security" guards raped her. The matter when brought to the higher authorities in the state and also when it was taken up with the government of India by the Canadian High Commission in New Dehli, the state police registered a case against the guards, arresting two of them whom Loura had conveniently identified in a batch of sixty-four guards paraded before her. She recognized them despite the fact that both of them had shaved off their beards.Loura was kept in protective custody by the state authorities and was allowed an interview with the state governor on October 13 who promised that stern action would be taken against the guards-turned-rapists.The authorities acted swiftly in view of the Canadian government taking a serious notice of the incident and it was in a record time that an inquiry was conducted and culprits punished.
But they were Left Free after some time.

Here lies the difference between the rape of a foreigner and that of a Muslim Kashmiri woman. The latter is treated as an allegation and passes off unnoticed and unwept.

SOURCE:Weekly Takbeer, Srinagar, October 31st, 1990

The Aftermath of Kunanposhpora Victims

Award Winning Documentary By Indian Journalist Shilpi Gupta.

Kunaposhpora Victims Video

Mubeena Gani Tragedy

Just before midnight on 18 May 1990 a bus carrying 27 members of a family wedding party approached a roadblock manned by soldiers of the Border Security Forces (BSF) near Badasgam village in Kashmir, India. As the bus rolled to a halt, the soldiers opened fire, killing the bridegroom's brother and wounding at least nine others, including the bride - 18-year-old Mubina Gani - and her husband. "We lay down under the seats and pretended to be dead," she said. "After the shooting they came inside and started to beat everyone." Some of the soldiers dragged the new bride and her heavily-pregnant aunt into a nearby field. "We were crying bitterly. I told them that I had not yet seen my husband. But they didn't listen. They took off our clothes...and then we were raped. Four to six men raped me, I think." Suffering from shock and gunshot wounds, Mubina Gani was taken away and held in military custody for 48 hours. Indian officials initially claimed that the bus had accidentally been caught in a cross-fire. However, the Superintendent of the Anantnag police later confirmed that the BSF had fired on the bus indiscriminately and that the two women had been gang-raped. Four BSF soldiers were apparently suspended from duty, but no further legal or disciplinary action appears to have been taken.

The most unusual thing about this incident is the fact that it has been publicly reported. In countries around the world, government agents use rape and sexual abuse to coerce, humiliate, punish and intimidate women. When a policeman or a soldier rapes a woman in his custody, that rape is no longer an act of private violence, but an act of torture or ill-treatment for which the state bears responsibility. International law obliges governments to protect all men, women and children from torture and ill-treatment, and requires that allegations of torture be promptly and impartially investigated. Thorough investigation and prosecution of those responsible sends a clear message that human rights violations will not be tolerated and that those who commit such acts will be held fully accountable.

Marriage is mankind’s oldest institution, marked everywhere with jubilations, gatherings and celebrations. In Kashmir, it is an elaborate affair. The brides are brought home late in the nights. But in the 90’s, the situation forced a change. Deep in South Kashmir, in May 1990, the BSF intercepted a marriage party. The bus was fired upon without any reason and looted. One person was killed. The bride, Mubina Ghani, and her chaperone aunt were separated from others, taken into the fields and gang-raped. It should have shocked everybody, but barring the incident forcing a change in Kashmiri marriages, nothing changed. Many years later it was revealed that after failing to hush it up, a court martial by the BSF sentenced two constables to five years imprisonment and dismissal from service, while two head constables were punished with forfeiture of seniority and reduction in rank!!

Source:Amnesty International & Greater Kashmir

Kunanposhpora Tragedy

“There was darkness all around. At 9:30 pm in the evening the army entered the village. They took the men and children out and they were taken to a nearby bus stand. Then they entered our homes at around 11:00 pm and started assaulting women.”

Draped in an embroidered pheran (a traditional Kashmiri gown) and a white scarf, a bespectacled elderly woman recalls the night of February 23, 1991. She is sitting in her home in Kunan-Poshpora, a small village in the north of Kashmir, the northernmost Indian state that has witnessed much violence and turmoil since 1947.

According to the old woman, around 10 to 15 soldiers entered every home in the village. “They would gag women to prevent them from raising hue and cry. We were not able to make much noise,” she says. There must have been around 1,000 soldiers in the village that night, she recalls. When interviewed in 1991, villagers claimed about 100 women had been molested. “They left the very small girls untouched,” she adds. “Besides them, no one was spared.”

The women were systematically assaulted and gang-raped, regardless of marital status, pregnancy, or age.

The next day at 10:00 am, the deputy commander of the soldiers came to the village. “He told the women that the army has not done anything wrong.”Furious, this elderly lady pulled her friend, who was also abused that night, out of her home to stand in front of the army commander. “I told him that she is an 80-year-old lady, but even she was not spared by his men.”

“He didn’t say a word. He stood speechless,” she recalls. “He just looked down.”

Seventeen years have passed since that night, but justice has yet to be achieved for the rape victims of Kunan-Poshpora. Up until now, nobody in the village has been willing to talk. Silence about that night, a collective gesture from the villagers, greets you like a wall. But behind this silence lie tragic stories.

On April 7, 1991, the New York Times reported the Kunan-Poshpora rape incident under the headline, “India Moves Against Kashmir Rebels.” According to the report, on March 5, 1991, villagers complained about the incident to the then-Kupwara District Magistrate, S.M Yasin, who visited the village two days later to investigate. “According to a report filed by Yasin,” the article reads, “the armed forces behaved like violent beasts.” He identified them as members of 4th Rajputana Rifles and said they rampaged through the village from 11:00 pm on Feb 23 until 9:00 am the next morning.

The Indian authorities have dismissed the mass-rape charges as “groundless.” No further investigations have been conducted. The Kunan-Poshpora rape case has been buried like thousands of other cases of rights abuse by men in uniform in Kashmir.

However, in its 1992 report on international human rights, the United States Department of State rejected the Indian government’s conclusion, saying there was “credible evidence to support charges that an elite army unit engaged in mass-rape…in Kunan-Poshpora.”

After initial reluctance and much prodding, Saifuddin, a village elder from Kunan-Poshpora, opens up. (Family names are not commonly attributed to people from Kashmir and were not collected for this story). His story is like that of the old woman. “It was snowing outside that night. People were sleeping in their homes. The army came and entered every home. The men were taken out and interrogated near the village bus stand.”

He pauses, briefly. “Then they locked the rooms and raped our mothers and sisters.”

As dawn broke on that night in 1991, the soldiers let the men of the village go. The men immediately ran for their homes. “When we reached our homes we found our womenfolk weeping,” says Saifuddin. Despite their rage, which prompted them to seek swift justice for the crimes of the soldiers, the people of the village were unable to do anything. “We would have gone to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) against the army, but we couldn’t as the entire village was cordoned off.”

Four days after the incident, the villagers eventually were finally able to gain an audience with the nearby authorities. They collectively lodged an FIR at the nearby rural police station. The police arrived in the village to collect evidence and file a case against the army.

It was not difficult to muster up evidence and credible witnesses: doctors and nurses examined the women, police confirmed mass rape, and a report was submitted. But according to the villagers, almost 20 years later, the reports of doctors confirming rape are still lying in the Trehgam police station near Kunan-Poshpora. Dilbar Singh, who was the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Kupwara in 1991, investigated the case, but after he was promoted the investigation was stopped.


The incident has had serious ramifications for the women in Kunan-Poshpora that extends far beyond psychological damage and sensitivity. Memories of the incident are raw. Some women are even now afraid of marriage, while others are harassed or ignored by the men of the village because of the stigma associated with rape.

A young woman named Rahte was holding her baby in her lap when the men entered her home. “She fell from my arms near the window as I shouted for help.” Rahte’s daughter – who was a baby in 1991 on that night – comes inside the room, limping from the injury on her left leg that she sustained that night. More than thinking about her own past, her mother is worried about her daughter’s future. Her daughter hides behind Rahte’s scarf, shying away from any talk about her. “She doesn’t want to marry now,” Rahte describes as her daughter keep her eyes lowered, fiddling with the edges of her mother’s scarf.

Over the years, many Kunan-Poshpora families have opted to marry their daughters to relatives because it is now difficult to find suitable matches in other villages. “People outside the village talk about our daughters, and say they are from ‘that’ village,” she says, putting emphasis on the word so that it becomes derogatory. “This label has made our lives difficult.”After the incident, some women who were unable to live with the shame fell into depression and died in the years that followed. Many refuse to talk about the abuse they have subsequently suffered from their neighbours and others.

Sakeena’s life has taken a turn for the worse since 1991. Her eyes are cold and expressionless as she explains that her mother was 35 years old when the men barged inside their home. Sakeena herself, being but a girl at the time, was not hurt, but she was in the house while her mother was raped.

Sakeena was married outside her village in Nowgam six years ago, but at the time of her wedding, her in-laws were unaware of her village’s sad history. When they eventually learned about the incident from newspapers and relatives, life became difficult for Sakeena.

“She was harassed and taunted by her in-laws,” her mother tells us in her modest house overlooking a narrow street. Three years ago, Sakeena was sent back to her home in Kunan-Poshpora. Her in-laws are now seeking a divorce, but instead of talking to Sakeena directly, they delivered the message to her neighbors. The shame they seek to impart on her is manifest. Her husband never came to take her back and she had a stillborn child.

Another woman from Kunan-Poshpora, Sameena, who lives down a small street from Sakeena, has a very different story to share. She was married only a few days before the incident occurred in 1991. The morning after she and other village women were assaulted, the soldiers slung a gun across her shoulders. “They took pictures of me while I was paraded before the villagers,” she recounts. The soldiers used these tactics to instill fear in the villagers.

But unlike other victims, Sameena refuses to simply live with the shame. She wants a life of dignity, not the condemned life of victim. She also wants to help other victims. A social worker in the area came up with the idea of establishing a self-help group, and Sameena jumped at the opportunity to be involved.

Sameena was instrumental in bringing together 15 local women to form the self-help group, of which she is now the Chairwoman. Three years ago, and with some financial help from the social worker, she opened a bank account for the 15 Kunan-Poshpora rape victims. Initially three lakh rupees, or about $6,670.00 USD, were deposited in the account. Now, the women save some money each month. They are truly an anomaly in the village.

The men of Kunan-Poshpora have had difficulty dealing with the reality and aftermath of the incident. Some have resorted to violent revenge. After the mass rape, approximately 35 unmarried young men, between the ages of 18 and 30, left their homes to cross the border into Pakistan for arms training. They wanted revenge. According to the villagers, about 20 out of those 35 boys have been killed by now, and more have disappeared.

A woman from the village says her only son left home immediately after the incident. “He couldn’t see us in this condition. He was 18 when he left home. I came to know later that he had crossed the border for arms training,” she says as tears well up in her sunken eyes. She says her son returned after some years, to seek revenge and redemption for the women abused during the incident. “He was later killed by the army in an encounter.”


The village elders say being interviewed by journalists, human rights activists, and filmmakers from across the world has brought only disrepute to the village and its women instead of redemption. The rape victims, having recorded their statements on multiple occasions in the years following February 23, 1991, feel ostracized and ignored by the government. No financial compensation has been provided to the affected women. Kunan-Poshpora has had to rebuild itself.

At another home in the village, a bearded jobless young man says he gets very angry when journalists and human rights activists ask his mother questions about that night.

“Many people from India and abroad have come to this village in the past years,” he says angrily. “They record the testimonies of our mothers and sisters, and then they never return.”

Frustrated, angry, and impotent; bitterness lingers in Kunan-Poshpora, and the injustice of 19 years ago remains.

Source:Majid Maqbool for Dispatch International

Kunanposhpora Victims' Testimonies

Kunanposhpora Mass Rape February 23, 1991










Testimonies of Young and old women of Kunan Pushpora Kashmir Gang rape victims

It was one dreaded night when the village of Kunan Pushpora was attacked by a unit from the Indian army camped about ten miles from the village. All the men of the village were rounded up and locked away in a room of an empty house. The soldiers carried bootles of alcohol in their hands and were drinking, swearing and shouting.They had been in the village before, looking for militants.

They turned the lights off and used torches to enter all the homes. When the carnage was over, around 60 women were found lying in their homes either unconsious or weeping in anguish and pain. They had been raped. The victims were old women as well as very young femal children who will now be facing problems for the rest of their lives, if they live this foray by the Indian army. Here we present the testimonies of some of the women who dared to come forward.


I am Ziatun daughter of Abdul Rahim Dar. It was past midnight. My father was not in the house. I recall more than five soldiers entered my house and kicked open all doors. They turned towards me and pounced on my body like hounds and tore all my clothes. The lights went out and after that it was a never ending nightmare. I am unmarried and my future life looks very bleak. I will never recover from the trauma. Indian army look for militants. They knew I was innocent.


My name is Nisara. My father Gulam Mohomad was dragged away by violent military men. We are two sisters in the house at the time. We were screaming for help and struggling at the same time from the brutal attacks from the alcohol smelling soldiers. The room was dark and the army men were shining torch lights.
Both of us were raped in the room and we have no idea how many of these animals were coming and going in the house. We are both unmarried.



My name is Atiqa Begam. I have four children. It was a bleak, cold night and we were all in bed and sleeping. We were woken up by a group of Indian soldiers who burst in smashing all door and utensils. My screaming children were thrown out through the window outside.
They ransacked the house and came for me all with very harsh blows. I was half unconscious. They molested me in turns . I cannot recall how many people were in the house.
I am an elderly woman. My name is Lassi Begam I have three grown up children. The eldest is a policeman. My daughter Saja is deaf and dumb This night of onslaught by Indian army all my doors were smashed. I showed them the police uniform of my son. They took no notice and in the most degraded manner assaulted me and my handicapped daughter. I have never known anything like this in my sixty years of life. I kept shouting, 'Where is our GOVERNMENT ?

My name is Raja Begam. My husband answered the knock on the door . He did not return and next minute a gang of military men burst open into the bedroom, waving guns and bottles. We were frightened and screamed. All my children were muzzled with hand on their mouth and my clothes were pulled and torn. I was thrown on the ground with my head hitting the floor. I was gang raped by all the men in the room. I heard in my state of faint senses laughter and loud noises from the men. I have not recovered.


I am Munira. My father is Juma Shiekh. I have 2 daughters. This night was like a terrible nightmare --BROKE DOWN
I am Halima Begam. My husband Gulam Rasul was away. I heard this commotion in the village very late in the night. The dreaded noise came very near my house and all my doors were smashed. They were speaking to me in loud voice . I am not educated , I could not decipher what they said or wanted. Next thing I know they pounced upon me like vultures and molested me. I thought I had died. I and my husband are devastated .


I am Rahimi Begam. I was alone in the house. I was petrified when they burst into my small house. I pleaded with them I am a poor woman , please do not harm me. I am innocent. They drank from their bottles and beat me up .. I was on the floor and before long I now realised they were attacking me sexually. I was wanting to die. I pleaded in my language I cried . That had no effect. I had , I reckon a hundred people in my house , on top of me, smothering me and molesting me. I was left in a coma.

I am Jana Begam the widow of Lassa Dar. I have two sons. I was sleeping in my room with my daughter-in-law. we were woken up with loud noises from outside. Suddenly the door was kicked open. We were faced with a lot of Indian, violent, drunk soldiers. They waved bottles at us and threatened with their guns. We did not know what to say. They pounced upon us, threw us on the ground and assaulted both of us. This was the most degrading experience of my life. I wanted to die. Why? I asked have these people come to attack us? I was told they were looking for militants. We are innocent people , poor and live a sheltered life in this remote part of the world. I am still in shock and I never will recover.


I am Shahmal. I am a mother of four and on this night I was alone in the house. We were all sleeping when the onslaught from the military woke us up. We all cried frightened. They tore my clothes off me and in the presence of my children, threw me on the floor and molested me.


I am Jamila. I and my husband with three children were sleeping. It must have been midnight, they took my husband away and raped me in front of my children. We have been attacked four times so far. You come taking statements from us. What is the use?


I am Zaina Begam wife of Jabbar Dar. My husband was grabbed, beaten up and carried away. They came back, ransacked the house, made noises ad drank from bottles. They hit me hard. I was unconscious. There was a big commotion in the village. We thought it was the end for all of us. The Police arrived the next day and took statements. Nothing has been done. We are suffering.

My name is Zarifa Begam. My husband was away and my 5 children were sleeping. It was about 3 in the morning when two Indian soldiers broke open my bedroom door. I was gagged, beaten up and raped. My screams woke my children and they came in to help me. They were pushed into another room with guns and kicks and bolted. I have my whole body hurting from cuts.

Sara Begam wife of Abdul Ahad deposed. It was midnight. I answered a knock on my door. Three men confronted me and shouted 'Hands up' in Hindi. I protested that I was alone and there were no militants in my house. They grabbed my hair, pulled it hard, ripped my clothes. What have I done? 'We have orders from our officers to do this.' They were violent, they were drunk and they were animals. The night was an ordeal.

My name is Bakhti Begam. My husband is a tailor in the village. It was dead of night. They kicked the door open. They dragged the men from the house and molested us. We were very frightened and tried to struggle, but they beat us up very hard and threw us on the floor. We cannot relate details.

My name is Zooni Begam. My husband Gulam Mohomad Dar was taken away by a group of Indian army in the middle of the night. We had cordon & search by army before, but they never found any guns or militants here. This time they came at night with a surprise and very angry looking. They grabbed hold of my clothes ripped them in pieces and the whole gang set themselves upon me. I suffocated. I could not breath. The aftermath was as if an earthquake had struck us. I have not recouped from the ordeal and never will .

Men in the village were rounded up beaten and locked in a house , while the rampage of their homes and molestation of their homes went on. " Why do you treat us like this?" They asked. "We have orders to rape your women and destroy the village" The whole village was littered with empty bottles of alcohol. They behaved like animals. There were officers with them, because they had stripes on their uniforms.

This young school-girl was also the victim of this hineous crime.

I am the brother of the Numberdar the headman of the village. My name is Abdul Ahad Shiekh. The army unit is based about ten kilometres from Kunan Pushpora. This was the sixth time they attacked the village. In the past they have been getting everyone out on the road , line them up and search them, men women and children. Then they search the homes , even the animal sties and grain stores for weapons and militants . They never found anything. They have now destroyed the whole village.

I am in the state police force. I was on duty when my officer informed me that I have leave to go home, because there has been trouble in my family. I came here and found that my own sister has been raped by the army . People are still coming to terms after a month of the event . On the morning after the carnage there were about sixty women laid helpless crying, fainted, and in distress. Victims old and young will suffer devastating consequences