SRINAGAR (TSAT) - Kashmiri women around the world observed Feb. 23 as “Resistance Day” against the barbarism of Indian forces who carried out mass raping of women and girls in Kunan and Poshpora areas of Kashmir in 1991.

The victims who were tortured and sexually assulated by the Indian forces are still waiting for justice. 

Thirty one years ago, on 23 February 1991, hundreds of Indian Army soldiers raided the villages of Kunan and Poshpora in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, under the garb of so called "search operations" and brutally gang raped over 100 women including girls as young as 13 years and as old as women of 80 years of age.  

“The  savegery and barbarity the Indian occupation forces committed on 23rd February 1991 in Kunan and Poshpora villages will remain etched on the hearts and minds of Kashmiri people. Equally etched will remain the criminal silence of the International community,” said Abdullah Gilani, a prominent Kashmiri leader.

According to the 2012 Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (J&K SHRC) report the men in the towns were first taken out from their homes and located to a different area. Then the Indian forces who had "transformed into monsters" forcefully entered into the houses in that area and sexually assaulted women and gang raped them.

"We were getting ready for bed when the soldiers came. They took the men away. Some started drinking alcohol. I was holding my two-year-old daughter in my arms when they tried to grab me,” a survivor told BBC, she requested for anonymity.

"I resisted, and in the scuffle she fell out of my arms, and out of the window. She was crippled for life.

"Three soldiers grabbed me, tore my pheran, my shirt - I don't even know what all happened after that. There were five of them. I still remember their faces,” the victim told British media.

Many independent investigations and fact finding missions (including the one led by a former chief justice of the IIOJK high court – Justice Bahauddin Farooqi) have concluded that Kunan Poshpora case has seen unprecedented proportions of ignorance with regards to normal investigative procedures that must be followed after such a heinous crime. 

  Around 40 women among the victims stepped forward to seek justice but a vast majority didn’t even seek justice because of the attached social taboos and Indian government’s suppression. 

The survivors of Kunan Poshpora had been staging regular protests but their voices have been muffled. As Indian media, political elite, judiciary and security forces are collectively to be blamed for this sheer negligence and barbarity, according to TRT World.

The UN Human Rights body in its 2018 reports said that there is also almost total impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances, with little movement towards credibly investigating complaints, including into alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region.

“Chronic impunity for sexual violence also remains a key concern in Kashmir.  An emblematic case is the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape 27 years ago when, according to survivors, soldiers gang-raped 23 women. “Attempts to seek justice have been denied and blocked over the years at different levels,” said the UN in its report.

Despite, UN reports, the world body has not taken any action to bring the perpetrators into justice. 

Kashmiri calling that darkest day as “dark chapter of Indian forces atrocities” in Kashmir as six victims of the tragic incident of mass gang rape committed by the Indian military died the very next day of excessive bleeding.

"When I read and recall about Kunan-Poshpora it fills my heart with pain, on the night of 23Feb, from 13 years to 60 years, Kashmiri Muslim women have been gang-raped their screams are still longing for justice,"  Wrote Iftikhar Misgar on twitter. 

"Ya Allah you do justice."

As #KunanPoshpora trend on Twitter and other social media remained on top as million people around the world expressed solidarity with Kashmiri people and condemned India for committed brutal acts against the innocent people in Kashmir. 

"Indian forces’ personnel molested 11,179 women including victims of twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora mass rape and Shopian double-rape-and murder case of 17-year-old Aasiya Jan," wrote shahpara _speaks on Twitter.