It's been 22 years since the Konan Poshpora mass rape.
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It's been 22 years since the Konan Poshpora mass rape. With yet
another round of investigations set to begin, women in two villages of
Kupwara, now joined forever, ask when will the questions end and the
answers begin
On a February night in 1991, during a cordon-and-search
operation, soldiers of 4 Rajputana Rifles of the Army's 68 Brigade
swooped down on Kunan and Poshpora, twin villages 7 km from Kupwara,
forced the men out of their homes and confined them to two houses in
Kunan. Then, they barged into the other houses and allegedly gangraped
women and children—from a 14-year-old physically challenged girl to a
70-year-old grandmother.
That's the night Kunan and Poshpora became Konan Poshpora, joined
together in public lexicon by a catastrophe that changed the lives of
its people forever. Twenty-two years later, that night has seen no
closure despite several probes and reports. With further investigation
into the mass rape case set to begin—this time on the orders of the
Kupwara judicial magistrate—the wounds have once again been prised open.
A narrow road from Kupwara, lined with paddy fields, hamlets and
orchards, leads to Kunan and Poshpora. It is an address everyone tries
to disown. "Kunan? This is not Kunan," a man says dismissively in one of
the villages on the way.
Ironically then, it's easy to miss Kunan, a cluster of exposed
red-brick houses, while Poshpora hides just behind it. Villagers are
wary of outsiders. Men talk in hushed tones, some walk away to avoid
conversation, women pull their scarves over their faces and children
look on suspiciously. However, for a village that has every reason to be
distrustful, there are no boundary walls around the houses, almost as
if they are in a constant, wary huddle. "After 1991, we have lived in
fear. Though we would like to build walls around our houses, we are too
poor to afford them," says Ghulam Ahmad Dar, a 70-year-old villager from
Kunan.
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