Handwara girl makes U-turn, blames cops

The 16-year-old Kashmiri girl whose alleged molestation pushed the Valley into widespread unrest and escalating violence last month that left five persons dead and scores injured, on Monday alleged that she had been forced by the J&K police to deny the involvement of an Army jawan in the incident.

She said she was asked to blame the occurrence and its aftermath instead on two local youth. “The police forced me to say what they recorded on a mobile phone and then put it up on the Internet,” she said at a press conference here organised by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).

The girl had on April 13, a day after Handwara witnessed clashes over her alleged molestation, said in a video that it were actually two local youth who harassed her and that there was no Army soldier present in the public lavatory where the supposed incident had taken place. She later reiterated it in a statement recorded before a judicial magistrate in Handwara, 72 km northwest of here. The video released by the Army had apparently been recorded in a police station on April 12 itself.

The Army had said it did not film the video. It, however, also said the Army has verified the authenticity of the video and identity of the girl. “The video is being released after obscuring the face to protect the identity of the girl keeping in view the sensitivities involved,” defence spokesman Lt. Col. N.N. Joshi had said here.

But the girl, who along with her father and an aunt remained in the “protective custody” of the police for 17 days, alleged she was kept against her will in the police station and subsequently in two private premises. “They made me sign blank papers. I can’t write in Urdu. They made my father write in Urdu and took our signature,” she said. Her parents, who were also present at the press conference, said she was pressured into changing her initial statement about the incident.

The girl alleged that it was an Army jawan who had grabbed her hand when she had gone to lavatory adjacent to an Army bunker in Handwara on April 12.

“I was there when the soldier came and tried to assault me. I ran out and on seeing me in a state of shock and screaming, a crowd gathered,” she said adding that she was forcibly taken to Handwara police station by a policeman she identified as Muhammad Shaffi Watali.

“This was against my will. I had requested him to allow me to go to my home but he refused and abused me verbally,” she alleged, adding that she was produced before the thana munshi and that he and other policemen present there behaved in a hostile manner. “Their behaviour was very hostile. They used abusive language against me and even threatened me. I was scared,” she said, adding, “The munshi also took my mobile phone and did not allow me to use it to speak to my parents.”