From Our Correspondent
THE women have been the worst victims of Pak-sponsored militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. They have lost not only their husbands, children and other near and dear ones but also a large number of them have been killed. Many others faced rapes and other acts of brutalities.
According to a report, as many as 2,025 women were killed and 247 abducted; 110 were hanged to death and over 60 killed by slaughtering and cutting their limbs. In several cases ears and noses have been chopped of and countless were raped.
The report revealed that in the first seven months of the current year alone as many as 53 women were done to death and over a dozen were abducted.
During the past many days the women who were killed also included 22-year old Khursheeda of village Jasmalan of Mahore area. She was done to death alongwith her father and two brothers just because one of her brothers was a SPO working with the police.
In the village of Madana in Poonch district, a young woman named Shamshad Begum was slaughtered because one of her relations was working with the security forces.
Another young girl, Mariyam, was abducted and repeatedly raped before her ears and nose were chopped off just because her militant brother had surrendered to the police.
According to an army spokesman, the local women, fed up with the situation in Hill-Kaka and some other areas, the women have taken to arms to defend themselves against the terrorist attacks, especially when their male members are away on routine jobs.
Such women are even been providing training in arms and other equipment by organising themselves into groups. This has been done because the army and other forces cannot be deployed in each and every village. This experiment has proved quite successful, especially in Doda district, where over a 1,000 women volunteers have been organised during the past years.
