Twenty-two years after over 30 women in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district alleged that Army soldiers gang-raped them in twin hamlets of Kunan and Poshpora, the infamous case has witnessed unusual movement and limelight this year.
While a local court in Kupwara asked the Jammu & Kashmir Police to reopen the case in June, several rights groups highlighted the issue and reached out to the victims in a sustained campaign. On Tuesday, Indian chapter of Amnesty International urged the authorities to avoid delay in conducting fresh investigations into the alleged rapes committed during the night of February 23, 1991. Quoting reports Amnesty said that on the fateful night, the Army personnel entered the towns of Kunan and Poshpora to conduct a search operation. “They confined the men of the village outside, and then allegedly entered their homes and raped between 23 and 53 women,” Amnesty said.
On June 18 2013, a local court in Kupwara district directed the J&K police to reopen the case and investigate the long-standing allegations within three months. A representative from the Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a local human rights group, told Amnesty International India that witnesses and alleged victims were asked by the Senior Superintendent of Police in Kupwara to record their statements at his office on July 3, 4, 10, 11, and 16. However, when they assembled at the location on July 3, they were told after hours of waiting that the schedule for recording statements had been changed. Police have not yet announced the new schedule.
Media reports and local activists say that Army and intelligence officials have visited Kunan and Poshpora in June to meet with community leaders and ask about statements given by survivors in connection to this case. local activists believe this is an intimidation tactic. Villagers also allege that a Government official has offered them money to stay silent. Two months remain for the investigation to be completed. Previous investigations into the allegations have been ineffective. The J&K police declared that the case was ‘untraceable’ and stopped investigations in October 1991. To date, investigations have remained inconclusive, and nobody has been charged or prosecuted in connection to the case.
In October 2011, the J&K State Human Rights Commission, responding to a series of complaints from alleged victims, directed the Government of J&K to reopen and reinvestigate the case, and prosecute a senior official who it said had deliberately scuttled the investigation.