ISLAMABAD: Peace and Culture Organisation ChairpersonMushaal Hussein Mullick has said that the fascist Indian forces have been using rape as a weapon of war to humiliate the people of India-held Jammu Kashmir and suppress the powerful dissenting voices to defuse the flames of freedom struggle.

Speaking at a roundtable on `Targeting vulnerable groups as a weapon of war: Indian`s abuse and impunity in Kashmir` organised by Legal Forum for Kashmir-LFK on Kashmiri Women`s Resistance Day on Thursday, she said that the notorious army forces were committing such heinous war crimes under the protection of a draconian law Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

According to a statement, she paid tributes to the struggle andsacrifices of the survivors of mass rape and torture in Kunanposhpora, who were yet to get justice despite lapse of 32 years. She vowed that the brave Kashmiri women would not let go in vain their sacrifices.

Ms Mushaal, wife of incarcerated senior Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik, said that February 23 was one of the blackest days in the history of Kashmir when Indian troops entered Kunanposhpora in Kupwara district and committed mass rape.

She said Indian troops had gang raped around 100 women of all ages from eight to 80 years old on the night of February 23 in 1991 during a siege and search operation in Kunanposhpora.

She stated that Kunanposhpora mass rape was a glaring example of Indian troops` brutalities in Kashmir.

`It is a blot on the so-called democratic face of India, which is using rape of women as an instru-ment of state terrorism in IIOJK, she said.

The gravity of the situation could be judged from the fact that at least 682 women have been martyred by Indian troops since January 2001.

The Hurriyat leader stated that since January 1989, the unabated Indian state terrorism rendered 22,957 women widowed while Indian forces` personnel molested 11,256 women. She said thousands of women lost their sons, husbands,fathers and brothersin the occupied territory who were subjected to custodial disappearance by Indian army, police and paramilitary personnel.

Ms Mushaal demanded that the international human rights organisations and world powers should take urgent steps for providing justice to the victims of the Kunanposhpora tragedy and made the culprits example so as no India troop could ever commit such heinous crime again.