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Society
'Command'
Marriages
by Prakriiti Gupta
Until October
2005, Roubia Kousar, 14, a Gujjar tribal girl, lived a placid life in
the remote Lurkoti village, district Rajouri on the Indo-Pak border in
Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Her life changed drastically in October when
she was abducted by a group of Lashkar-e-Toiba militants and forcibly
married to a militant. She was brutally gang-raped by her 'husband' and
his militant friends for two months and shifted from one hideout to
another. One day, when they lowered guard, she escaped. Her family had
to flee their native village and move to Jammu, the winter capital of
J&K.
The militants have now announced a reward of Rs 50,000 (US$1=Rs 44) for
her
- dead or alive. Jammu-based lawyer A K Sawhney filed a public interest
litigation in the High Court seeking protection for her. On January 30,
2006, Justice Parmod Kohli of the J&K High Court ordered the Deputy
Inspector-General (DIG) Rajouri-Poonch to conduct an inquiry into the
matter and to provide Kousar with protection because she faces a "major
militant threat".
Kousar's is not an isolated instance. Militants have abducted many young
girls in J&K and forced them into marriages at gunpoint. While there are
no surveys or studies on this, even the state police records place the
number at over 50. This is probably a gross under-representation because
most people do not come forward to report the matter to the police for
fear of incurring the militants' wrath.
Forced marriages are a relatively new phenomenon. Initially, militants
would just abduct women at gunpoint. This led to severe opposition from
the locals. There were also several reports of fighting among militant
groups, particularly the indigenous Hizb-ul-Mujahideen group and the
foreign Lashkar-e-Toiba group. The local militants were strongly opposed
to the exploitation of Kashmiri girls by foreign groups. It is also
believed that the mentors of militant groups have sent out stern
directions that the militants must not offend locals, for fear of losing
their support.
A police officer posted in the Ramban area of Doda district also
believes that "marriage is convenient for the militants, because it
helps them evade suspicion when they move around with women and
children. The family structure is an easy shelter for them."
Zaitoon Bano, 15, from village Bajoni, Doda district was forced to marry
Nazir Ahmed, a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant, in December 2005. Her family
was asked to choose between death and marrying off their daughter to
him.
The marriage was performed by a local Maulvi (Muslim priest) with a gun
pointed to her father's head.
Satvir Gupta, former DIG of Police, Doda, says that these crimes are all
too common. However, most parents are too scared to approach the police.
Gupta asserts that wherever the police have come across such instances,
every effort has been made to recover the girls.
There any number of cases that one could cite, though. Tahira Banoo, 16,
was forced to marry Barkat Ali, alias Yaseen, a 'divisional commander'
of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The girl and her family were abducted at
gunpoint from their house in Dewari village in Doda. They were taken to
a remote place, Behar Nallah in Dhar, Doda, where the militants forcibly
conducted the nikaah (wedding). The girl's parents were later let off.
The people of Kashmir say that terrorists, especially foreign
terrorists, are forcing the women into submission by threatening their
families. Shamim Akhter, 25, of Salora in Rajouri was to be married in
mid-November 2004. A known militant had wanted to marry Akhter, but she
had turned him down. She had to pay the price of that refusal with her
life and that of her brother and father.
With the conflict in J&K showing no signs of abating, the gun culture
dominates. And for girls and women in J&K, this has come to mean forced,
unnatural marriages to gun-totting illiterate youth or people twice
their age. Kashmiris complain that militants force young girls into
'mutah'
(temporary marriage) for a couple of years; these ceremonies have now
come to be known as 'command marriages'. In August 2004, police rescued
Shami Mukhta, 17, of Ramban, saving her from a 'command marriage' to a
militant twice her age.
There have been several reports of Maulvis being kidnapped and asked to
sign fake nikahnaamas (marriage certificates). When a conscientious
Maulvi refused to acquiesce in 2003, he was severely beaten up by a
young militant, who asked, "Do you think we won't get a Maulvi?"
The young girls who survive these marriages face an uncertain future
after their militant husbands are eliminated. They have no monetary
support to fall back on, and many people avoid them due to the stigma
attached to their association with a militant. The police of Doda cite
Shamima Ansari's case. She was forced into marriage by Farooq Ansari, a
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander in the Kishtwar area of Doda in 2000. He
was killed in an encounter in Anantnag in 2004. Ansari is now a widow in
her 20s, with three children, and is living with her parents in Doda.
Many parents are today fleeing their villages and marrying their
daughters off quickly, even to unsuitable grooms. Rehana (name changed),
a college student and daughter of a Srinagar-based doctor, was married
off to a widower with two children when the family cook, who had
militant links, asked for the girl's hand. The family fled Srinagar to
settle elsewhere in India.
There are also reports that parents are marrying their daughters off
earlier to save them from militants. Earlier, even in the remote areas,
Kashmiri girls were married off at 17 or 18 years of age. Increasingly,
the age of marriage is moving back to about 12-13. Riyaz Wani (name
changed), a former militant who assists the Indian security forces after
his surrender, says, "I have five daughters and one son. I have married
four of them off at 12-14 years of age, because militants would have
abducted them otherwise. The youngest one is only 11 and, already, I
have ensured that she is engaged to a boy in Udhampur."
Bashir Ahmed of Anantnag, who worked with a bat manufacturing unit, fled
his home when he discovered that local militants wanted to marry his two
daughters. "It is better to live in penury than live tensely in luxury
(with monetary support from militants). At least I am not leading a life
on the run. Nor is it riddled with the anxiety that news of death could
come at any moment," says Ahmed. Today, he works as a daily wage
labourer in Jammu.
February 12,
2006
By arrangement with
Women's Feature Service
Top
| Society
The Week of February 12, 2006
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by Rajinder Puri
United States - Iran Nuclear Standoff by Dr.
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Post Colonial India and its Architecture - II
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The Unconscious Foreigner by Aruni Mukherjee
Fresh Retellings of The Mahabharata by
Pradip Bhattacharya
US History - Lesser Known Facts, Analogies & Surmises
Part 1 by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
India centric hydraulic civilization of the old
world by Dr. V. Sankaran Nair
Sanatana Dharma and Hinduism by Dr. RK Lahiri,
Ph.D
Awaken the Giant Within by Rajgopal
Nidamboor
True Happiness by
Sugandha Indulkar
The School Going by Soma Guru
Awareness of Oneself by Viraj R. Rai
Priestly Brahmins by J. Ajithkumar
Journeys, Dreams and Other Thoughts by Naiya
Sivaraj
Mirage by NS Murty
Browsing by Vikram Karve
To a Beloved Husband, From a Blessed Wife
by Aparna Chatterjee
Fathers Have Feelings Too by Barbara Lewis
How She Snagged Her Tiger by Neha Girotra
Between the Black and the Red Light by Savad
Rahman
Sounds, Not Silence by Surekha Kadapa-Bose
Auditing Cities for Safety by Dr. Kalpana Viswanath
The Trouble with Scarves by Mehru Jaffer
Gujarat's Heroine A Profile of Latifabano
Mohammad Yusuf Getali
'Command' Marriages by Prakriiti Gupta
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