No, sir! In-house rapes are no less heinous.
| July 14, 2012 | Posted by Shehla Rashid under Kashmir, Politics |
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I’m astonished and deeply shocked to see the response to my outrage at the silence over the recent Baramulla rape incident. Of the most absurd responses, the commonest are:
“We should try to cover up rather than highlight what goes on in our home”!
“This is not something to be condemned; it is something at which we (Kashmiris) should hang our heads in shame”
I will explain briefly why such responses are absurd:
1. Does the perpetrator of rape, who is himself a Kashmiri (even though this has nothing to do with being Kashmiri), spare the victim of rape on grounds of ethnicity? Does he take mercy on her because she is a fellow Kashmiri? No, he doesn’t. For him, at that moment, the victim is only an object through which he can satisfy either his lust or his ego or both. So why should we hush up the matter just because this beast of a man happens to be (unfortunately, of course) Kashmiri?
2. Rape is a serious offence and must be treated as such. Regardless of the race that the victim belongs to, the damage done is irreparable. One really has to be a racist dickhead to think otherwise. There is no “racial” dimension to rape- it is as horrible when committed by an Indian soldier as by a Kashmiri man. If you still think otherwise, we’ll let you choose who you would want your sister to be raped by. That’d make things a bit clear, I hope.
3. By “hanging our heads in shame” and letting the matter be pushed under the carpet, we are acting as mute spectators to a heinous crime and happily being accomplices. I’m sorry, but I’d rather be politically incorrect than be acquiescent in such crass treatment of a serious crime. By letting the culprits get away with rape, we are creating a dangerous space where those who speak against the crime are stigmatised, the victim is marginalised further and left without support and where criminals are encouraged.
4. What if the man and the woman in question were having consensual sex instead? It would not take us a minute to curse them and condemn the act between two Kashmiris. Why, then, is non-consensual sex (rape) by a Kashmiri with a vulnerable, weaker, helpless fellow Kashmiri harder to condemn?
Hypocrisy is so abundant a natural resource in Kashmir that one could make an entire industry out of it. Oh, wait! That is already a huge industry.
I agree that crime is a crime and it should be condemned by all. I am surprised how people are some times silent over such brutalities…!! Neverthless it is equally deplorable that those few who have not empathized with the sensitive issue deserves generalisation of my society… I never support such hypocritic siliences why people like me are not counted in your comment….
Yes, It is disgusting that one more innocent soul has been victimised and worst this time by some kashmiri and it is equally disgusting my whole nation has been maligned by you – a fellow Kashmir because you have listened only to “those few” who are near or around you…