Good for Sonia Raj that she has found her calling.

I am told by some psychologists that sex during a war like situation
becomes a refuge for people...this corroborates with a couple of army
friends telling me that kashmiri women are known as 'easy' by the army
men due to this.

Now - rape is heinous and should be condemned but people need to
understand the impact this situation has had on armymen and the women
of kashmir too.


Facts Unlimited wrote:

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/august-2006/21/index6.php

One visit to Held Kashmir wakes up Indian lawyer

NEW DELHI (AFP) - It took Supreme Court lawyer Sonia Raj Sood just one
visit to Held Kashmir to find her true calling in life - to fight
atrocities against Kashmiris by India's security forces.

"You may read about it but you only really understand it when you get
to Srinagar," Sood told AFP, referring to Srinagar.

"You realise that atrocities are being committed against an entire
race and ... they are being committed by our army," she said. The
"pain and suffering and trauma" she saw in Kashmir prompted her to
launch her own one-woman campaign to persuade Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh to rein in the troops.

Since that first trip to Kashmir in February this year, the 40-year-old
Supreme Court advocate has criss-crossed India, Pakistan and Britain in
a bid to persuade prominent personalities to write letters to Singh
urging him to order a halt to human rights violations there.

The dynamic yet unlikely activist - she was once married to a
Maharashtra prince and lived in a palace near Mumbai - began her
campaign in India, twisting the arms of colleagues and political
leaders until they fired off letters to the Indian premier.

She then crossed the border into Pakistan where she sweet-talked a
string of parliamentarians, including Chaudhry Shujat Hussain, to write
to Singh.

"I would urge you to take a bold initiative by seeking the withdrawal
of Indian troops from Jammu and Kashmir, from those areas where human
rights violations have been documented," wrote Hussain.

She also got former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan, now leader of
the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or Movement for Justice party, to urge a
pullout of Indian troops from Held Kashmir. "I am of the view that
soldiers are not trained to operate in civilian areas - regardless of
which country they belong to," wrote the cricketing great.

"I want you to rethink India's strategy in Held Kashmir and ease
the plight of the long suffering people by withdrawing troops from
civilian areas of the valley." Being a lawyer, Sood also sought -
and received - the support of the Islamabad Bar Association. After
Pakistan, she headed for Britain where she again rounded on politicians
and lawyers.

As to be expected, members of the All Parliamentary Group on Kashmir in
the British parliament threw in their lot as did a host of leading
activists - including Tony Benn - from the Third World Solidarity
group. "We ... are writing to express our profound concern at the
long-standing problems of human rights violations in Jammu and Ksshmir.
As a respected world leader we would entreat you to make every efort to
resolve the Kashmir issue," wrote the Third World Solidarity
activists.

Sood's trip to Britain also prompted a spate of letters to Singh from
civic and religious leaders as well as from top lawyers. Her next goal
is to get leaders in the United States to put pressure on the Indian
premier until he makes good the promise he made during a visit to
Srinagar in May that there will be "zero tolerance" for rights
violations.

The Indian army has an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 soldiers in
Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed in
full by both countries.

Rights groups in Kashmir claim that atrocities are regularly committed
by the security forces, but the military denies this and says all
complaints are investigated and perpetrators prosecuted.

Sood believes that to the contrary in fact very little has been done to
halt the abuses and says a culture of impunity has developed in the
decades that Indian soldiers have been deployed among the Kashmiris.

"When an army has been in a civilian area for an extraordinarily long
time, atrocities will take place," she said.

"When a soldier is not allowed to go home for two years, he will look
for women there - which means there's rape all the time," she
said.

Other abuses include beating up of locals as well as abductions,
imprisonment without trial and extra-judicial killings, she said.

Human rights groups put the number of rapes at about 10 a year in
Kashmir but Sood argues that many go unreported for fear of further
victimisation and because of the stigma that rape attaches in the
Muslim-majority community.

Sood said her immediate goal was to get the Indian prime minister to
rein in the troops and halt rights violations.

"My longer term goal is to have some of the army out (of Kashmir) -
and definitely out of the civilian areas."

Though continuing her practice as a lawyer, Sood said her life's
focus had changed dramatically.

"When I went to Srinagar I woke up. I thought that this is what I
want to do with my life."