Sumbal Minor Rape: A Blot On Kashmir

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Blot On Kashmir

The Legitimate Desk  Blot On Kashmir

 In January 2018 when a 9 year old girl of Gujjar community in Kathua district was raped and murdered, the incident shook the whole India. Various social, political and apolitical groups launched the sustained campaigns to bring the culprits to the justice.

The 9 year old girl whose pictures went viral on social and mainstream media later shattered the hearts for facing the unimaginable brutality at the hands of rapists. The chilling details in some investigative reports regarding her rape and death further accentuated the demands of strictest punishment to the guilty. Many arrests were made amid the political standoff between the political parties which off late divided the state on religious lines.

Meanwhile, the accused in the case are under custody and the matter is subjudice. The public outrage over this rape and murder doesn’t seem to have left any impact on our society and the women in our society continue to suffer the trauma of sexual abuse –in many cases by own sexual predators.

In case of Kathua girl, there was more outrage and anger against some people who were trying to defend the accused in the case though the barbarity was unimaginable inflicted upon the girl. But in Kashmir following this gruesome Kathua case, there are more gruesome and gory stories appearing on the scene regarding sexual harassment of women.  Recently, the whole valley was left in a shock when a 3 year old girl was raped by a young boy in Sumbal town of North Kashmir. The child is battling for life and the accused is behind the bars.

According to reports the incident took place at Malikpora, Trehgam area of Sumbal in Bandipora district.

Prior to this incident young girl in the same district accused her father of consistently sexually abusing her for years. The shameless father in fact later tried his hands on another daughter who resisted vehemently. As this was not enough to hang our heads in shame, the victim’s cousin sister also accused her father of sexually abusing her. Prime facie, it reveals that the two brothers have been the regular sexual predators of their daughters. The main victim could not further tolerate this psychological trauma by her father further and committed suicide.

 Last year yet again in a most embarrassing incident, a mother plotted a rape and murder of her step daughter by her son along with his accomplices.

This embarrassing incident occurred in Boniyar village of North Kashmir and the partially mutilated body of 11 year old victim was recovered in bushes of nearby dense forests.  This incident occurred in September last year and five people in this connection have been arrested including the step mother and step brother of victim after complaint was lodged by her father.

Barely a month later in October last year, was a man arrested in Tangmarg area of same district for raping and impregnating his daughter.  Daily wager by profession, accused was arrested after his son and the victim’s brother lodged complaint with police against the incident.

A report of 2017 regarding the sexual harassment in Jammu and Kashmir suggests that every day one case of sexual harassment is reported. Alone in year 2017, 365 cases of sexual harassment were reported to the police. The survey suggests that there are lot more unreported in a socially conservative society to avoid social stigma by the victims.

Experts are attributing the growing incidents of sexual abuse in Kashmir to delayed marriages, misuse of internet and easily availability of porn content on internet besides growing social waywardness.

“We have witnessed that marriages in Kashmir are solemnized quite late. It is an acceptable norm now to marry after 30 years of age for both male and female. Scientifically one shall be marrying as young as possible and 20’s is a good age for that,” said, Khalid Hussain who teaches sociology in North Kashmir College.

However, he says that alone these are not the reasons for such social crimes. The criminal tendency among the boys may also motivate them for such horrific crimes and religion has a role to play.

Kashmir is known as “perwaer”, the garden of saints. The religious teaching for centuries has greatly influenced the minds of people here. However, since the past several decades, the religious scholars especially the Muslims seem more into fighting on sectarian grounds instead addressing the social issues collectively.

The people have been observing it sharply.

“Even after father was held in Bandipora district for raping his daughter, our priests (Imams) didn’t bother to raise such topic in mosques on Friday sermons. We stayed as mute spectators to that devastating crime until we witnessed another horrific incident in the same district of rape of 3 year old child,” said Haji Mohammad Afzal.

More than the law enforcement agencies, the onus lies on the religious scholars for raising awareness among the people against this social morass. But unfortunately we are more interested in defending sects of religion,” he adds.

Ironically, over the past few decades, there is steep rise in sectarian Islam in valley, due to which the Islamic scholars have been defending their own sect’s instead of uniting the society to address the common issues.

Syed Ali Geelani, an influential separatist leader too blamed the enforcement agencies and existing judicial system.  Although he termed the horrific incident of Submal as a blot on Kashmirs rich social and cultural fabric, he didn’t even urge Islamic scholars to preach against this prevailing issue.Sumbal Minor Rape 

In fact the Sumbal incident which could have held the heads of humanity in shame divided the society in Kashmir, prompting authorities to enforce virtual shutdown and imposing restrictions in many towns and cities of valley.

The selectivity in condemnation is horrible; more is differentiating the crimes and criminals. Kashmir’s political parties have only condemned the incident of Sumbal after facing severe criticism for its selectivity. The collective efforts to raise the awareness for the dignity of women are the need of time. Looking back into the history of Kashmir, it has been an extremely tolerant to the women and has given birth to spiritual women like Lal Ded, Habba Khatoon and many more.

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