BINOO JOSHI

A traditional Kashmiri wedding at which the bridegroom is welcomed by women. Militants have been demanding such courtesies at gunpoint. File picture
Jammu, Dec. 18: Abdul Ghani and his family were preparing to turn in for the winter night when the gunmen barged in.

They hadn’t come to kill anyone and didn’t want any money, the leader of the militants assured the family. They only wanted Ghani’s pretty, 14-year-old daughter.

“For Nazir Ahmad here, he wants to marry Zaitoon Bano,” one of them said. “We’ve brought a maulvi, so they can be married right here. Then she’ll have to come with us.”

Helpless before the guns, the family obediently trooped into one room and were locked up. The maulvi, Akhtar Ali, solemnised the marriage and the militants left with their child hostage.

It happened in the village of Bajoni Sumbar, in Jammu’s Doda district, on the night of December 6. The family is still clueless about where the daughter and their unwanted son-in-law are.

Militants have been forcing women, many of them minors, into marrying them at gunpoint ever since the start of insurgency in Kashmir, and have always got away with it.

The rebels usually put their brides up in their hideouts or rent a separate home for them and visit them occasionally. When a married militant is absent for a long time, affluent local people are asked to look after the wives. Nobody dares disobey.

Sometimes, after the death of her militant husband, a wife has to take to prostitution to survive.

The brides are chosen much the same way: a local militant — familiar with the area and the people — takes a fancy to a girl.

Nazir, a member of Hizb-ul Mujahideen in the Ramban area of Doda, had apparently had his eye on Zaitoon for some time.

Ghani has informed police, who have promised action. “We are making all-out efforts to recover the girl,” Ramban superintendent of police Gareeb Dass said. But villagers don’t have much hope.

The maulvi has told the police he was “helpless” — the militants forced him to solemnise the marriage at gunpoint.

Ghani is trying to get village elders’ help to get his daughter back, but hardly anyone is willing to help. “No one wants to court trouble by crossing the militants’ path,” a villager said.

A senior police officer said such crimes were common in rebel strongholds.

“Most of the time, the parents are too scared to report the matter to the police. They bear their pain in silence.”

Farooq Ansari, a Hizb commander, had forced Shamima in the Kishtwar area of Doda to marry him. He was killed in an encounter in Anantnag last year and is survived by the widow and two little kids.

A Pakistani militant, Abu Hamza of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, fell in love with a girl called Reshma in the Mendhar area of Poonch. But before he could marry her, he was killed by the security forces in November last year.

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Source: The Telegraph India