Srinagar, March 08,2026 : As International Women’s Day is being observed worldwide today, the miseries and agonies of Kashmiri women continue unabated at the hands of Indian forces and police personnel in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. On the occasion of International Women’s Day that the miseries and victimization of Kashmiri women at the hands of Indian forces—including the army, Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Special Operations Group, police and other agencies—continue unabated in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. In 1947, during the Jammu massacres, mass rapes were perpetrated by Dogra troops alongside Hindu fanatics RSS, Jansang and other like in a brutal campaign against the territory’s Muslim population. Thousands of Muslim women were abducted, raped and subjected to unimaginable horrors, particularly in Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch and Kathua districts. These atrocities were not random acts of violence but a systematic attempt at ethnic cleansing, actively facilitated by the forces of the Dogra State under Maharaja Hari Singh.
Since the 1988 popular uprising, scholars and human rights organizations have consistently documented the use of rape as a weapon of war by Indian state forces, including the Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Border Security Force (BSF). The deliberate and targeted nature of these crimes underscores the continuing pattern of oppression in IIOJK, where sexual violence remains a tool of subjugation and terror against the local population.
After 1989, Indian forces selectively raped, tortured and killed Kashmiri Muslims and burnt their homes and business centers. Indian forces have committed rape as a form of retaliation against civilians who were demanding the right to self-determination under UN supervision.
According to a 1993 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, Indian forces used rape as a method of retaliation against Kashmiri civilians. Most rape cases, according to the report, occurred during cordon-and-search operations.
In October 1992, representatives from the Asia Watch group and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) traveled to Kashmir to document rape and other human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war by Indian forces. Later they released a book titled “Rape in Kashmir” on May 9, 1993.
The report of Kashmir Media Service revealed that since January 1989, Indian state terrorism has rendered 22,991 women widowed, while 11,275 women were molested by Indian forces’ personnel.
The report of Kashmir Media Service also reveals the devastating impact of Indian state terrorism on women in IIOJK. Since January 2001, at least 690 women have been martyred by Indian forces’ personnel.
Aasia Jeelani (30), a Kashmiri journalist and human rights activist, and her advocacy for "half-widows" was killed on April 20, 2004, when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated under a vehicle she was traveling in, in Kupwara,. She was on assignment monitoring elections with the Coalition of Civil Society at the timeof the blast. She was killed in Chandigam village in the Kupwara district, along with her driver, while others in the vehicle were injured.
The report further pointed out that the majority of Kashmiris suffering from multiple psychological problems are women.
The report cited some of the most heinous crimes committed against Kashmiri women, including the mass rape in Kunan-Poshpora, as 2009, 17-year-old Asiya Jan and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan were raped and murdered in Shopian distric, and the rape and murder of 8-year-old Aasifa Bano in Kathua, each exposing the culture of impunity granted to the Indian forces establishment in the territory.
on May 18, 1990, in Lisser-Czawalgam area of south Kashmir Islamabad district, Mubina Gani, then 25, of nearby Mohripura village, was set to get married. Her hands hennaed, hair scented and wearing an orange-pink dress, she was ready to begin her new life with Abdul Rashid Malik, a farmer by profession. Mubina’s dream was snuffed out by personnel of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF).
As armed insurgency raged across the valley, Indian armed forces operated under a carte blanche. Undeclared curfews and checkpoints were a norm. “We had received curfew passes beforehand from the local administration,” said Malik, now in his 57s. He, along with many of his friends and relatives, left by bus at 8:00 in the evening for the wedding in Mohripura.
After dining and celebrating for a few hours, the procession, along with the bride and few of her relatives, boarded the same bus and left Mohripura and headed back towards Lizzer-Czawalgam. Barely three kilometres into their journey, the vehicle was intercepted by an Indian BSF patrol and ordered to halt. “They first scolded the driver and told him to dim the lights,” recalled Malik. “While my brother tried to show them the curfew pass, they shot the driver.”
“The Indian BSF personnel indiscriminately opened fire on the bus with a machine gun,” said Mubina. “All of us ducked for cover but couldn’t escape the bullets,” she added.
Around 10 passengers in the bus were hit, including the newlyweds. One of Malik’s cousins, Assadullah Malik, was killed on the spot while five others were critically injured. However, the ordeal was far from over.
After the guns fell silent, while blood was still oozing from her wounds, Mubina, along with her pregnant aunt, were carried to the nearby fields and gang raped by Indian BSF personnel. The bride was raped by at least four BSF personnel. “No one else can comprehend the torture that was inflicted on my body and soul during that night,” Mubina told that time to media men, her eyes swelling up. “I spent at least a month recuperating in the hospital.” But the bride’s nightmare didn’t end there: she was then taken away and kept under detention for at least 48 hours, says Mubina.
According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, the use of rape as a weapon of war by Indian forces started in the early 1990s.
The report said that thousands of women lost their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers in the occupied territory who were subjected to custodial disappearances by Indian forces personnel. According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, 8,000 Kashmiris went missing in custody during the past 38 years, inflicting pain and agony on the womenfolk of the occupied territory.
The report said that over three dozen Kashmiri women—including Hurriyat leaders Aasiya Andrabi, Fehmeeda Sofi, Naheeda Nasreen, Rubbeena, Suraya Rashid Wani, Tabasum Maqbool, Anjum Younis, Saima Akther, Saima Jan, Zaytun Akhtar, Ishrat ,Nigeena, Sarda Begum, Munira Begum, Mudifa, Rashida, Suraya Rashid Wani, Zaytun Akhtar, Shams Begam, Anjum Younis, Haseena, Zareena Akhter, Tahira Kouser, Suraya Rashid ,Aafreena alias Aayat, Shabroza Bano, Masoom Ali ,Gulshan Naaz , Nusrat Jan , Maryama Begum and Shabnam Akhter languish in Indian and IIOJK jails, facing political persecution for championing Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. They are being politically victimized only because they represent the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and their demand for the right to self-determination, it added.
The report highlighted the widespread use of pellet guns by Indian troops, leaving thousands of schoolchildren injured and blinding over 100, including 19-month-old Hiba Jan , 2-year-old Nusrat Jan, Ulfat Hameed (17), Insha Mushtaq, Ifrah Shakoor (17), Shakeela Bano, Tammana (11), Shabroza Mir (16), Shakeela Begum (35) and Rafia Bano (31).
Four-year-old Zuhra Majeed was hit by pellets in her legs and abdomen after her family was targeted by Indian police outside their home in Qamarwari in Srinagar on July 10, 2016.
A 17-year-old student from Baramulla said: “I used to teach sewing and tailoring to girls in my village, but not anymore. Because of the injuries, I could not write my class 10 board exam.”
A police constable and a Special Police Officer (SPO) in July 2021 gang-raped a minor Dalit girl in the Dansal area of Jammu.
Many mothers and wives died while waiting for their disappeared sons, while widows and half-widows have been living in pain for decades in the occupied territory.
From Azad Jammu and Kashmir, around 400 women who married Kashmiri youth are facing injustice as the Indian government is neither granting them citizenship rights nor travel documents to return to AJK. Their children are also denied admission to government schools.
“I came here in 2012. My mother died recently but I could not go to see her one last time,” said Saba Fayaz, who belongs to AJK and married a youth from IIOJK.
Women in Kashmir do not enjoy the basic rights guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) adopted by the United Nations.
The report said Kashmiri women continue to face immense political and social pressure, citing the case of Rafiqa Begum, wife of illegally detained Hurriyat leader Ayaz Akbar, who died of cancer in 2021 while her husband remained imprisoned in Tihar Jail.
Another victim, Maroofa Meraaj, wife of detained Hurriyat leader Raja Meraaj-ud-Din Kalwal, said she and her daughters suffer from depression due to his prolonged imprisonment.
Another victim woman, Rafia Begum, whose son Athar Mushtaq Wani was martyred by Indian troops in a fake encounter in Srinagar in December 2020, continues to demand justice and the return of her son’s body, which was forcibly buried in an unmarked grave in Ganderbal.
Hundreds of such mothers face injustice and trauma as their sons are buried in unknown graves in Baramulla, Kupwara and Ganderbal districts.
There are hundreds of mothers, wives and daughters waiting for the return of their loved ones, including APHC Chairman Masarrat Alam Butt, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Khurram Parvez and Advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom, who remain imprisoned in different jails in India and IIOJK.
International Women’s Day is celebrated every year on March 8 since 1910. In 1975, the United Nations designated it as a day to celebrate women’s achievements and advocate gender equality.
For women living under state-sponsored oppression, the day serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle against discrimination and injustice.
Despite global frameworks, women in conflict-ridden areas like Kashmir continue to face violence, harassment and systematic discrimination.
The report said the termination of Kashmiri women employees by the Indian government without due process violates their fundamental rights and dignity. Among those dismissed from their jobs are Raziyah Sultan, Saima Akther, Assabah-ul-Arjamand Khan, Shaida Banoo, Dr Nighat Shaheen Chiloo, Dr Sabiya Salam and Farnaz Kouser.
.The report stressed that the international community must recognize the suffering of Kashmiri women and ensure protection of their rights.
Justice must be ensured for all the atrocities they have endured over the past four decades since 1989, when India launched an all-out offensive to crush the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.
The report also cited numerous documented cases of sexual violence committed by Indian troops in the occupied territory since 1990, including the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape of 1991, one of the most notorious cases highlighting impunity enjoyed by Indian forces.
Scholar Dara Kay Cohen from Harvard University lists the conflict in Kashmir, alongside Bosnia and Rwanda, as among the "worst" of the "so-called mass rape wars".
According to Human Rights Watch: There are no reliable statistics on the number of rapes committed by Indian forces in Kashmir. Human rights groups have documented many cases since 1990, but because many of the incidents have occurred in remote villages, it is impossible to confirm any precise number. There can be no doubt that the use of rape is common and routinely goes unpunished.
It was reported that Indian forces committed gang-rape of 882 Kashmiri women in 1992 alone. The Humanitarian Law Project/International Educational Development documented more than 200 cases of rape from January 1994.
In 2016, Kashmiri human rights activist and lawyer Parvez Imroz said that a vast majority of cases of sexual harassment by Indian forces in Kashmir go unreported.
Rape by Indian forces has notably occurred in different operational areas and it has also happened to women from the Gujjar community, who live on the periphery of Kashmiri society. According to journalist Freny Manecksha, who tried to document conflict-related rapes in Kashmir in 2012–2013, their remote location has left them more susceptible to sexual violence.
Khurram Parvez remarks that women fear reprisals from the Army to file the cases of rape. He says, "This is because there are cases in which when rape was reported, members of their families were attacked or prosecuted." He also states that it would be technically very difficult to prove rape, since the incidents happen in the areas which are completely under the Army's control.
Some of the cases of rape by Indian troops in IIOJK are given as under:
On June 26, 1990, a 24-year-old woman from Jamia Qadeem, Sopore, was brutally raped by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel during a search operation. An FIR was registered against the BSF in Sopore police station in July 1990.
On March 7, 1990, Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel raided multiple houses in the Chhanpora locality of Srinagar, subjecting several women, including two minor girls, to brutal sexual violence. A fact-finding mission by the 'Committee for Initiative in Kashmir,' which visited the Valley between March 12 and 16, 1990, documented harrowing accounts from the victims. Among them, 24-year-old Noora was forcibly dragged out of her kitchen by 20 CRPF personnel and raped alongside her sister-in-law, Zaina. The victims also witnessed two minor girls being molested.
In 1991, a mentally ill elderly woman was brutally raped by Indian forces in the Barbar Shah area of Srinagar.
On February 23, 1991, during a search and cordon operation in the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora in Kupwara district, an Indian army unit gang-raped approximately 100 women of all ages, ranging from eight to eighty years old.
On August 20, 1991, Indian troops committed mass rape in the Pazipora-Ballipora area of Kupwara district, with estimates of the number of victims ranging from eight to fifteen or more.
On October 10, 1992, a unit of the 22nd Grenadiers of the Indian army gang-raped between six and nine women, including an 11-year-old girl and a 60-year-old woman, during a search operation in the village of Saidapora, Shopian.
On July 20, 1992, during a search operation in Haran, Ganderbal district, the Indian army raped at least two women. One victim, interviewed by Asia Watch and PHR, reported being gang-raped by two Indian troops in turns. Another woman from the same incident was raped by a Sikh soldier while another soldier stood guard.
On October 1, 1992, after killing ten people in the hamlet of Bakhikar, BSF forces entered the nearby village of Gurihakhar. Several women and a teenage girl were raped during this operation. One woman, in an interview with Asia Watch, revealed that she tried to protect her daughter from the humiliation of being identified as a rape victim by describing herself as the victim instead.
Before the Bijbehara massacre, a significant incident of molestation and gang rape occurred in the Bijbehara area of Islamabad (Anantnag) district in 1993. However, the elders in the area chose to hush up the incident due to the fear that revealing the crimes would bring shame upon the families of the victims. Later, in August 1993, during a violent operation on the outskirts of Bijbehara town, Indian army personnel raped a woman in the Gadhangipora area.
On 17 June 1994, seven women were brutally raped by Indian troops of the Rashtriya Rifles in the Hyhama area of Kupwara district, including two officers, Major Ramesh and Raj Kumar.
In 1994, a 60-year-old woman was raped by Indian troops in Sheikhpora, while the male members of her family were locked away.
In 1994, a woman and her 12-year-old daughter were subjected to rape by Indian forces in the Theno Budapathary Kangan area of Ganderbal district.
On 30 December 1995, the Indian Army's Rashtriya Rifles barged into a house in Wurwun village of Pulwama, and subjected three women to sexual assault.
In November 1997, a girl fell victim to the brutality of Indian forces, raped in the Narbal Pingalgom area of Pulwama.
On 13 April 1997, twelve young Kashmiri girls near Srinagar were stripped naked and gang-raped by Indian troops.
On April 22, 1997, Indian armed forces personnel entered the home of a 32-year-old woman in Wavoosa, Lolab Valley, Kupwara district. They molested her 12-year-old daughter and raped her three other daughters, aged 14, 16, and 18. A woman who tried to stop the assault was beaten.
October 5, 1998, A 50-year-old woman from Ludna village, Doda district, told Human Rights Watch that eight soldiers from the Rashtriya Rifles barged into her house. After beating her, an army captain raped her, saying, “You are Muslims, and you will all be treated like this.”
On June 3, 2000, Mumtaza, a 10th-grade student from Dhar village, Doda district, was abducted by Indian army personnel from the 10 Rashtriya Rifles.
October 29, 2000, during a search operation, troops from the 15 Bihar Regiment took a woman to a camp in Bihota, Doda district. The next day, 20 women attempted to rescue her but were detained, sexually assaulted, and held for hours by the army.
April 22, 2002, Indian BSF troops from the 58th Battalion raided the house of a Norwegian woman in Kullar Pahalgam, Islamabad district, and raped her while she was residing as a paying guest.
October 28, 2004, four Indian army personnel raped a 21-year-old woman in a guesthouse near Zero Bridge, Srinagar.
In 2004, Hameeda, a 16-year-old from Kupwara district, was abducted, tortured, and raped by two police officers attempting to extract information about her cousin, according to the Himal South Asian Review. When she failed to cooperate, an army officer raped her. Her father had to beg for her release.
On November 6, 2004, in Baderpayeen, Handwara, Indian army personnel raped a mother and her daughter. According to Khurram Parvez, programme coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, despite the gravity of the crime, officers downplayed the incident, citing the Muslim identity of the alleged rapist, Major Rahman Hussain, who was convicted only for trespassing instead of rape.
On March 7, 2005, Indian Border Security Force soldiers from the 112th Battalion molested 16-year-old Bilqees Bano and her mother Farida after barging into their house during a search operation in Kulangam, Kupwara district.
On March 12, 2005, during a search operation in Theevan, Kangan, Srinagar, Indian army’s 24 Rashtriya Rifles, led by Major Chauhan, dragged, molested, and beat five women, including Naseema Akhter, and tore off their clothes.
On March 17, 2005, Indian troops from the 138 BN BSF attempted to molest women after barging into their houses during a search operation in Rajpora, Tral, Pulwama.
On March 18, 2005, an Indian army sentry molested Shafeeqa, 40, in Chatabal, Srinagar, when she visited a police chowki to drop food for her son, who had been detained by police.
On March 22, 2005, Indian police constable Muhammad Sidiq Khan from Sherbagh Police Division, Islamabad, was charged with "outraging the modesty" of a girl. A case was filed after medical evidence confirmed the rape.
Between May 29-30, 2009, two women, Asiya and Nelofar Jan, were abducted, raped, and murdered by Indian paramilitary forces from the Central Reserve Police Force in Bongam, Shopian district.
On 10 January 2018, 8-year-old Muslim girl, Asifa Bano was abducted, raped and killed by seven Hindu males including a police officer in the Rasana village near Kathua.
On July 12, 2021, a Special Police Officer (SPO) raped a minor Dalit girl in Dansal area of Jammu district.
The latest incident occurred on March 2, 2026, when an SSP of Srinagar police allegedly misbehaved with and physically assaulted at least six women during a procession in Alamgari Bazar, Hawal Chowk in Srinagar.