tbutalia@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Tarunjit S. Butalia) (03/25/91)
By GHULAM NABI KHAYAL KUNAN POSHPORA, India (UPI) -- The night of Feb. 23 was the holiday of "Shab-i-Barat" in the northern Kashmir Valley, a time of dusk-till- dawn prayer when Muslims believe God will decide their fate for the coming year. It also marked the worst reported case of mass rape since thousands of Indian soldiers began moving into the area in January 1990 to put down a secessionist movement by Muslim rebels. In the remote village of Kunan Poshpora, on a snowbound trail near the Indian border with Pakistan, lights in the community's two-story houses burned late as the town's 1,000 residents made their peace with Allah. Khair Ded, 46, was at home with her husband and six children. Down the lane, 15-year-old Shareefa Bano tended her ailing father. In another home, Hafeesa Bano was in the last stages of pregnancy, awaiting the baby boy who would be born four days later. Outside, the northern Himalayas were covered with a deep blanket of snow and the village seemed safely isolated from the political troubles that have plagued the valley during the past year. At 11 p.m. a group of Indian soldiers from the Rajput Rifles infantry unit entered the village on foot. They moved quickly past the mosque in the village center and fanned out into the surrounding neighborhood. Residents heard loud knocks at their doors and then the sound of splintering wood as the soldiers kicked their way in. The troops ordered the men outside into the cold, beating some and tying others to trees. Then, as residents and local investigators tell it, during the next eight hours the soldiers gang-raped 20 to 40 women and girls. Khair Ded said she tried to jump out the window of her second-story room when 11 troopers stormed into the house, but she was grabbed by the soldiers and raped at gunpoint in front of her children. "They tore my clothes and gagged my mouth when I tried to cry out for help," she said. "They showed no respect, even for my gray hair." Five soldiers forced their way into the home of Rahmi Bano, a 40- year-old mother of three. "They broke open the door of our bedroom, beat up my husband and ordered him to go out," Bano said. "(They) left me half-dead after five hours of continuous raping." Shareefa Bano, the 15-year-old girl with the ailing father, was raped by a group of eight to 10 soldiers as her father wailed in torment in an ajacent room. "They bounced on me like uncaged hungry animals," she said. Hafeesa Bano, the pregnant woman who gave birth four days later, also was raped, said her sister, Jannat Bano, as she cradled Hafeesa's newborn to her chest. The youngster's arm was heavily bandaged. Jannat Bano said the baby's arm had been fractured in the womb when his mother was raped. At 7 a.m., shortly after daybreak, the soldiers withdrew from the Kunan Poshpora, leaving behind a village in shock. Because of the remoteness of the village and official silence, the incident remained a virtual secret for 10 days. Then local investigators lodged complaints of rape, forcible entry into private homes and illegal confinement against the soldiers. Indian officials denied the incident took place, claiming it was an attempt to smear the reputation of the well-regarded Rajput Rifles and the army as a whole. Asked by reporters to comment on the incident, caretaker Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar acknowledged some excesses in the Kashmir Valley but denied the incident at Kunan Poshpora. "That's not the truth," he said. Kashmir Police Chief J.N. Saksena said an army brigadier went to the village to investigate the claims and reported back that he had received no complaints from the town's residents. He quoted the brigadier as saying there were "doubts about the genuineness of the charges against the soldiers." Despite high-level denials, some state legal officials are convinced by the residents' stories. District Magistrate Syed Mohammad Yasin visited the village and filed a report to the state commissioner and police chief saying 23 women were raped at gunpoint. "I was shown the rooms which were used by the armed forces for gang- raping and was shown their clothes which were torn off by them," Yasin said in his report. "(The) armed forces turned violent and behaved like wild beasts," he added "I feel ashamed to put in black and white what kind of atrocities and their magnitude was brought to my notice on (the) spot." For residents of Kunan Poshpora, there is no question about what happened Feb. 23, only bewilderment at the lack of response by the state and national governments. The residents say about 40 women and girls were raped that night. Residents gathered recently in the town schoolhouse to talk to reporters who hiked 4 miles through 2 feet of snow to get to the remote site. Women and men wept as they told of the events of that night. Waisi Bibi, 60, said troopers who smashed in her door with their rifle butts raped her deaf and mute daughter-in-law. "I have preserved the blood-stained clothes and trousers of my handicapped daughter-in-law, whose whole body was injured by those brutes," she said. "I told the soldiers that my own son is a police constable, but they did not bother to listen." Tarunjit --