By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) for Human Rights and Women Empowerment Mushaal Hussein Mullick urged the international community and human rights organizations to take notice of the rising tendency of custodial rape and using rape as a weapon of war by inhuman and brutal Indian forces.
Mushaal, who is also the wife of unlawfully incarcerated senior Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik, said that the brutal occupation forces had been using sexual abuse of women in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) as a weapon of war for over last seven decades but the international community and world powers observed criminal silence in this regard.
She said that the notorious Indian law enforcers involved in the heinous crimes, were given a license to carry out all inhuman, immoral and unlawful acts to silence the dissenting voices in the occupied valley.
Mushaal pointed out that the dirty and ugly face of India was exposed by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which revealed that India had recorded 275 cases of custodial rape between 2017 and 2022, adding that these incidents, documented across various states, involve perpetrators from law enforcement, armed forces and other custodial facilities, reflecting a misuse of power under the guise of state protection. The SAPM for Human Rights and Women Empowerment recalled that incidents such as the gang rape in Kunan Poshpora in 1991, the double murder and rape in Shopian and the gang rape of young Asifa Bano are among the most harrowing examples of the nightmare faced by women in Kashmir. She stated the NCRB showed that even Indian women were not saved from these mentally sick Indian forces, which clearly indicated that they were not human beings rather they were beasts, who did not even know anything about humanity and women’s rights.
Mushaal highlighted that the gravity of the situation could be judged from the fact that over 11,000 cases of sexual violence have been reported since 1989 in IIOJK, leaving nearly 23,000 women widowed and over 107,805 children orphaned. She said Indian fascist forces could cross all limits of brutalities and inhuman acts but they could not dampen the courage of Kashmiri freedom fighters.
