Kunan-Pooshpore Tragedy unforgivable: Farooq Rehmani

ISLAMABAD, Feb 23 (SABAH): “Kunan-Pooshpore mass rape Tragedy of Kashmiri women and girls in the night of 23rd February, 1991, is a heinous crime of incomparable magnitude that cannot be weighed in words by tongue or by pen, and the perpetrators can never be absolved without an impartial judicial investigation and court trial, and no victim can forgive a brute criminal, warns Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, Chairman J&K People’s Freedom League, ex-Convener All Parties Hurriyat Conference AJ&K, reflecting the feelings and sentiments of innocent and helpless women and girls , numbering upto 100, whose resilience and faith is matchless even after 35 years of the pangs of rape-catstrophe.

In a statement issued on Friday, Muhammad Farooq Rehmani said that no generation of the Kashmiris would ever forget the tragic incident of 1991 Kupwara Kunan-Pooshpore. He said the FIR of the crime is in the concerned Police Station and the local magistrate had confirmed it, but the Human Rights Watch had accused the Indian army’s Rashtriya Rifles of gang raping about one hundred village girls and aged women in revenge of Kashmir’s youth who had launched armed struggle to gain freedom and right of self-determination as resolved by the United Nations. He stated that Indian army used rape as a weapon to silence the voice of freedom and humiliate the people of Kashmir during 1990s, but she failed to win over the hearts of the people. He firmly stated that no Kashmiri would ever withdraw their demand of court trial and exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of the rape and murder crimes in Jammu and Kashmir during the last 30 years, including justice for the victims of the Kunan-Pooshpore tragedy.

Farooq Rehmani said, “the Human Rights Commissioner of the UN has documented the state-sponsored terrorism in 2018, 2019, and it is the responsibility of the world body to take necessary steps in this regard, so that the Kashmir dispute is addressed and resolved peacefully and in line with the its relevant resolutions”.