Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: March 28, 2009
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20090328/812/tnl-married-to-militants-and-living-in-h.html
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.
(Binoo Joshi can be contacted at binoo.j@ians.in)
