Human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover has called for reopening the Kunanposhpora gang rape case in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK), saying that New Delhi is trying to push cases of human rights violations and women’s rights violations under the carpet.
Grover, who has been named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine, in a media interview to a Srinagar-based daily over phone from New Delhi, said most people in India were unaware about the mass rape of women in Kashmir by the Indian troops, KMS reported.
The troops raped around 100 women in the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora in Kupwara district on February 23, 1991.
An advocate for women’s rights, Grover features in TIME’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, from artists and leaders to pioneers, titans and icons.
She said the Indian human rights movement and the Indian women rights movement should look into the Kunanposhpora case and highlight the impunity enjoyed by the troops in Kashmir. “We in India who work for human rights and women’s rights should see beyond territorial borders,” she said. “We should raise the issue of rights of Kashmiris, which are being trampled.”
Grover was at the forefront of the protests against the December 16,
2012 Delhi gang rape of a 23-year-old woman physiotherapy intern who was beaten and gang raped in a bus in which she was travelling with her male companion.
Grover said the Indian human rights and women’s activists had a moral and ethical responsibility to inform the people about the trampling of rights of Kashmiris. “We’ve a bigger responsibility to make people aware in India because a lot of what is done in Kashmir is being portrayed to be done for the people of India,” she said.
Grover said one of the biggest issues with India was that “it tries to push cases of human rights violations and women rights violations under the carpet”.
