[Reader-list] Married to militants and living in hell: Kashmiri girls

[Pawan Durani]

Married to militants and living in hell: Kashmiri girls

By Binoo Joshi



Not all marriages are  made in heaven. Some are solemnised at the
point of a gun - as many women and teenaged girls in Jammu and Kashmir
will tell you.

Forced marriage to militants has wrecked their lives in the
insurgency-wracked state. Fatima Bi, now 16, who belonged to Chatroo,
a mountainous village in Kishtwar district, told IANS over telephone
that she was just 12 when she was abducted by militants.

She was studying in Class 7 in a local government school when one day
a group of four militants led by Sher Khan, then divisional commander
of Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HUJI), barged into their house and
kidnapped her.

'I was studying at that time when they abducted me,' she said.

'They took me to their hideout in the nearby forest where they beat me
and tortured me for eight days. They hit me with rods on my thighs and
threatened to kill my family if I did not marry Hashim Ditta,' she
said.

She said Ditta was a close friend of Sher Khan and a helper of HUJI.

'She was forced to marry Ditta at gun point,' said a police officer in Kishtwar.

Fatima wanted to study and become a teacher. 'But my dreams were
shattered after they abducted and forcibly married me to Ditta,'
Fatima said. Ten months after her marriage she gave birth to a son and
her 'childhood was snatched away when I delivered this baby'.

A 'happy moment' for Fatima came when Sher Khan along with his two
associates surrendered before the security forces last year.

'Except for bearing Ditta's child I never took him as my husband and
there never was any such feeling as it was a forced marriage that
ruined me,' she said.

Sher Khan was sentenced to imprisonment for eight years. Fatima took
this as an opportunity and fled Ditta's house along with her infant
son.

Ditta's parents, however, lodged a missing person report with police.
Fatima went to her relatives in an adjoining village and fell in love
with a farmer.

Her second chance at life was however not so easy as the local clerics
said even if it was a forced marriage, Fatima would have to live with
Ditta until they got legally separated.

Similar is the story of 18-year-old Chana whose nightmare started in early 2007.

A Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA) militant called Farid fell for her when he saw
her grazing cattle in the Chicha area of Kishtwar district. She too
was forced to marry at gun point.

'I too had dreams of getting married to a well-to-do person with all
the rituals,' said Chana. 'But in forced marriages like ours it is
just a couple of militants and a maulvi who form the marriage
gathering.'

A few months later, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant, Khalid,
operating in the area, wanted to marry Chana and asked Farid to
divorce her. But when Farid declined, the LeT militant shot him dead
and also shot Chana in the left leg.

She was forced to marry Khalid and now lives with him along with her
and Farid's infant son.



--Courtesy: IANS Service