Kashmir calls for new probe into mass rape

Kashmirs State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has recommended that the government set up a special team to reinvestigate the alleged mass gang rape of at least 31 women by Indian army personnel in 1991.The women from the villages of Kunan and Poshpora in northern Kupwara district had claimed that they had been gang raped by soldiers during the night of February 23-24 in 1991, at the peak of the freedom fighting that erupted in 1989.The incident sparked mass protests across Kashmir.A high-level team from the Press Council of India visited Kashmir in June that year to investigate the case.The call from the SHRC follows Fridays announcement by Kashmirs chief minister that tough emergency laws imposed in Indian Kashmir in 1990 that allow security forces to act with near-impunity would be partially withdrawn.The SHRC has recently been recording statements from the victims.In the course of hearing the case, statements of 18 women were recorded and during which they testified that they were subjected to the atrocity, the SHRC report said.It has advised the government that a senior superintendent of police should head the fresh team to probe the case.The SHRC has also asked the state government to prosecute the then director of the prosecution, who had sought to close the case on the grounds that the perpetrators were untraceable.In addition, the SHRC has recommended that government compensation be paid to each of the victims.Indian-occupied Kashmir is once one of the most dangerous places on Earth as New Delhi uses brute force against unarmed civilians.Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.