ISLAMABAD: As the world observes International Widows Day today, Kashmiri women continue to suffer at the hands of Indian military troops, police, and dreaded agencies in Indian illegally-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
According to Kashmir Media Service, on the occasion of International Widows Day being observed today, the unabated Indian state terrorism rendered 22,960 women widowed since January 1989 till date as Indian military troops and police personnel martyred their life partners in fake encounters and custody.
Around 2,500 Kashmiri women have been forced to live as half-widows during the past 35 years. Kashmiri women whose husbands were subjected to custodial disappearance after arrest by the Indian military and police are referred to as half-widows, and many of them died due to mental tension.
According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons and other human rights groups in IIOJK, around 8,000 Kashmiri people have disappeared from the custody of Indian troops and police personnel since 1989. For years, half-widows in occupied Kashmir have been running from one Indian military and paramilitary camp to another, trying to find the whereabouts of their husbands, it added.
