The official version was that a totally fabricated account of a normal cordon and search opera: ton was put out as part of a motivated propaganda campaign by the Kashmir militants and their mentors Pakistan) to discredit the Indian armed forces.
A local human rights group, the Peoples Basic Rights Protection) Committee (PBRC) headed by Justice Mufti Bahauddin Faroogi, a retired Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court, took immediate cognizance of the matter and made an on the spot enquiry of the incident.
The PBRC chairman, Justice Faroogi, in his report states that PBRC members interviewed 53 women who: were; raped by, the army men. According to him the total number of rape victims was nearly 100.
In the first week of March 1991, the District Magistrate (DM), Kupwara (Syed Mohammed Yasin on the advice of his superior, the Special Commissioner, Baramulla, visited the Kunan Poshpora settlements. he was handed over three whisky bottles as evidence of the liquor the army men had drunk. He examined 23 women who said they had been raped. Their victims were not available there at that time. He Visited the affected homes and saw the ell tale torn and bloodstained garments of the victim’s.
The confidential report of the DM to the press and the media quoted the DM as having concluded that the armed forces “behaved like violent beasts. A large number of armed personnel entered the houses of the villagers and gang raped 23 ladies at gun Point without any consideration of their age, married, unmarried, pregnancy, etc.”
A police case (FIR No. 10 under Sections 376, 452, 342, Ranbir Penal Code) was registered at the “Trehgam police station on March 8. One learning about the registration of the case, the army deputed Brigadier H.K. Sharma to conduct an enquiry which he did A Defence Ministry release later said the Brigadier had examined the alleged rape victims and others and dismissed the charge as “malicious and untrue.”
Article extracted from this publication >> March 20, 1992
