Pakistan slams India’s use of rape as weapon of war

Expresses solidarity with Kashmiri women who frequently face sexual violence

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday drew the world’s attention to the plight of Kashmiri women in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K), who had been frequent targets of sexual violence by Indian occupation forces.

“In the past three decades, more than 11,000 women have been victims of rape or gang-rape at the hands of Indian occupation forces in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. We reaffirm our complete solidarity with these Kashmiri women and their families,” the Foreign Office said in a statement on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Women in IOJ&K have frequently been targets of violence as a means to punishing their families and communities for standing up against illegal Indian occupation, it reads, adding: “abduction and molestation of young women during so-called cordon-and-search operations has been used as a punitive tool by Indian occupation forces to punish entire communities.”



The statement said such acts of violence against women were enabled through a pervasive culture of impunity, reinforced by “draconian laws” such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that shield the Indian security forces from prosecution for their crimes of sexual violence.

India’s resort to sexual violence in the conflict situation of IOJ&K has been documented by the two reports of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as well as global media and civil society organisations, the FO said and added that the horrific mass rape of Kashmiri women in Kunan Poshpura villages of IOJ&K on February 23, 1991 is one of the many evidences of “systematic use of rape” by Indian occupation forces to terrorise the entire population.

It said that lack of accountability of perpetrators and absence of justice for victims of rape and other incidents in the occupied region continue to define India’s deliberate disregard of rule of law and human rights.

“Pakistan condemns India’s use of rape as an instrument of state policy to subjugate the Kashmiri people in the occupied territory,” the FO statement. The world must wake up to such war tactics in IOJ&K, in violation of the international humanitarian and human rights law as well as applicable UN Security Council resolutions, it added.

It demanded of the UNSC, the OHCHR, the UN human rights mechanisms, and the UN secretary general’s special representative on sexual violence to take cognizance of such crimes and hold Indian state actors to account who abet and partake in acts of sexual violence against women in the occupied territory.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari also condemned the Indian government for inhuman policies and brutal clampdown in the occupied territory.

In a series of tweets, she said: “Today is Int Day for Elimination of Sexual Violence. Govts always seek to eliminate this horrendous crime as societies all over face it. What is condemnable is when govts themselves use sexual violence as a policy as Occupation Indian govts have been doing continuously in IOJ&K.”

Mazari also said: “Rape as a weapon of war has been used by Indian state in the occupied territory IOJK - remember 23 Feb 1991 mass rape by Occupation Indian forces in Kunan & Poshpora villages one of many such incidents now internationally documented. Modi's Hindutva Supremacist govt continues carrying out this crime.”

WITH INPUT FROM APP