Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel with the three arrested 'hybrid' terrorists involved in the attack on a policeman in the Bemina area of Srinagar city on Sunday.

Gun toting terrorists from across the border believed they had the right of unrestricted access to young women, whether daughters and wives of innocent citizens.

A picture of an aged Kashmiri man kissing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s large standee went viral on social media recently. Detractors of PM Modi called it a PR stunt “managed” by the ruling BJP. But in reality, it was a common Kashmiri acknowledging the changes sweeping the Valley after the removal of Article 370.

For several decades, Kashmir’s most scenic valleys have hidden some of the deepest perverse stories of the brutal sexual violence perpetrated against the local women by the jihadis. For the terrorists in Kashmir, sex with innocents was their occupation and the valley their playground.

Burhan Wani, who became a face of terrorism in the valley in the past decade, forced innocents to grant him unhindered access to several Kashmiri local homes. Wani’s multiple mobile devices, after he was killed by the Indian Army in an encounter, revealed hundreds of sexually awkward pictures of girls and a long list of such contacts.

Another terrorist nicknamed the “Mast Gul” (ladies’ man) killed in an encounter before Wani, was Kashmir’s most infamous playboy with a penchant for girls who had freshly attained puberty. The hapless Kashmiri husbands and fathers, whose wives and daughters were the victims of Gul’s unwelcome forays into their homes, spat on his body.

The picturesque snow clad mountains of Gulmarg and the Dal Lake of Srinagar have masked a society that for decades, after the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits, had been grappling with bloodshed, extremist values and a reluctant attitude in many to confront their own problems. kind of phantasm for civilized societies.

The terrorist slogan “Pakistan jaayenge, bachha leke aayenge (we wish to be impregnated by a jihadi from Pakistan)”, was spread by them like a war cry among helpless Kashmir women at the peak of terrorism in 1990s. These sordid tales of sexual perversity have been brushed and stuffed under the carpet, and some continue to paint the terrorists as valiant and righteous freedom fighters rather than the predators they were and are.

More than the promise of Kashmir’s integration with Pakistan, it was the liberty to sexually exploit Kashmiri women at gunpoint and a perverted sense of values that led some of the local youth to become a jihadi. The Indian Army is full of stories from the captured terrorists, who were promised pretty women as the spoils of their actions.

Plight of Those Who Were Suppressed

“Sir, das pandrah log aate hai, meri do betiyon ko kharab kar ke jaate hai (Sir, 10 to 15 terrorists visit our home and rape my two innocent daughters),” head of a small Kashmiri village told an Indian Army unit with tears dripping down his eyes.

Gun wielding terrorists from across the border had impregnated the man’s two daughters aged 15 years and 18 years—one of whom had to undergo a painful surgery for abortion. Several like this man turned against the terrorists as a result of their experiences.

For years, India was on the lookout for Abu Mazza, the mastermind of Kashmir’s most dastardly Nadimarg massacre, where terrorists killed 24 of Kashmiri Hindus and toddlers.

But he only fell in the net after a teenage girl reached out to the Army with information. The girl (13 years) was a victim of Mazza, who frequently raped her and two of her elder sisters at gunpoint. Stories of rape and sexual assault on young girls seldom remain hidden in Kashmir, and some of these unfortunate girls are forced into flesh trade by the terrorists. Several such girls ended up as escorts in big cities.

Dr Abhinav Pandya, a researcher and expert on counter terrorism says women are the chief casualties in regions inflicted with terrorism. “Their psychological trauma is immeasurable, we should not be harsh on them. Women are the cross-bearers in any conflict-ridden places. You will see such trends in different parts of the world, where terrorism has lasted for decades. Nobody wants to marry a girl who is perceived as a sexual slave of a terrorist.

Lots of them are blackmailed and pushed into flesh trade. Maybe the removal of Article 370 will bring some change.”

Many in the Valley say at last the removal of Article 370 has given new hope to so many innocent and exploited women in the valley. Terrorism, flesh trade and Pakistan are words they want to erase from the vocabulary.