Kashmir: 3 Indian paramilitaries suspended over rape

By Zahid Rafiq

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir (AA) - Three Indian paramilitary personnel were suspended after a 24-year-old woman alleged that she was raped by one of them at their camp near Jammu city in Jammu and Kashmir, an official said on Sunday.

According to Indian news agency Press Trust of India, the woman filed a complaint on Saturday in which she claimed that she lost her way while going to a relative’s house and she was intercepted by three Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) personnel who took her inside their camp on the pretext of helping her.

She said one of them raped her inside the camp while another filmed it on his mobile phone, the news agency reported citing the complaint.

“Three CRPF men have been suspended in connection with the incident and we have launched a departmental enquiry,” CRPF spokesman Ashish Kumar Jha told media on Sunday.

Jha said the woman filed the complaint after one of the paramilitary men uploaded the video of her rape on social networking sites.

Earlier this month, widespread protests were held across India against the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The girl from a nomadic Muslim herder family was grazing the cattle when she was kidnapped in January. A week later, her raped and mutilated body was found in Kathua.

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

The two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- since they were partitioned in 1947, two of which were fought over Kashmir.

Also, in Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have fought intermittently since 1984. A cease-fire came into effect in 2003.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.