The Betrayed Sanctities of Occupied Kashmir: A Call to Sincere Officers for Liberation

Allah (swt) said,

[وَمَا لَكُمْ لَا تُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَالْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ الَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا أَخْرِجْنَا مِنْ هَذِهِ الْقَرْيَةِ الظَّالِمِ أَهْلُهَا وَاجْعَل لَّنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ وَلِيًّا وَاجْعَل لَّنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ نَصِيرًا]

“And why should you not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? Men, women, and children, whose cry is: ‘Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from You one who will protect; and raise for us from You one who will help!’” [TMQ Surah An-Nisa 4:75].

On the freezing winter night of February 23rd, 1991, the Indian occupation forces, specifically the 4th Rajputana Rifles—systematically violated the honor of Muslim women: mothers, daughters, and grandmothers, young and old. The cowardly forces of the Hindu state surrounded the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora of Kupwara in occupied Kashmir, segregated the men and took them in fields away from their homes in the freezing cold night. These occupying soldiers then — drunk on impunity —barged into homes and gang-raped women, from girls as young as 13 to elderly women up to 80, including pregnant ones. Men were tortured and women raped. This was a heinous crime that trampled upon the sanctities of Islam, an atrocity so severe that it should have commanded the immediate mobilization of the armies just few kilometers across the border. However, they did not act and this betrayal has not ended yet.

Thirty-five years have passed since the darkness of that night in February 1991 and nothing has shaken and nothing has changed, these wounds are not merely scars of the past, they are a living testaments of betrayal, repeated many times again and again from Palestine to Kashmir.

The honor of the believers should have been the red line but unfortunately the Ruwaibadah rulers and military commanders of Pakistan did not mobilize against the Hindu State, they merely watched and managed the crisis to maintain the geopolitical status quo. The atrocity was reduced to a sterile diplomatic talking point. Their engagement with the Hindu State after this heinous crime was the betrayal that is etched in the annals of disgrace.

Barely a month after the screams of Kunan-Poshpora, while the victims were still being threatened into silence, the rulers of Pakistan continued on U.S.-influenced Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) post-1990. On April 4 to 7, 1991 Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary arrived in New Delhi to continue high-level bilateral dialogue. From April 6, 1991, in the ultimate display of capitulation, the leadership in Islamabad signed the “Agreement on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Maneuvers and Troop Movements” with New Delhi.Allah (swt) said,

[يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاءَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَتُرِيدُونَ أَنْ تَجْعَلُوا لِلَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ سُلْطَانًا مُبِينًا]

“O you who have believed, do not take the disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do you wish to give Allah against yourselves a clear case?” [TMQ Surah An-Nisaa:144].

A single, desperate cry of a captive Muslim woman in Amorium (Amoriyyah) — “Wa Mu'tasimah!” (O Mu’tasim!)—was enough to shake the capital of the Khilafah (Caliph). The Khaleefah Al-Mu'tasim bi-Allah did not respond by dispatching a diplomatic delegation or signing a border treaty or enforcing a ceasefire. He responded by mobilizing an entire army, leading it himself to shatter the walls of Amorium (Amoriyyah) and liberate her. He understood that the Khilafah is the shield (junnah) of the Ummah, and the honor of a single believer outweighs all diplomatic pleasantries in the world.

O Sincere Officers in the Armed Forces of Pakistan!

The military leaderships who preceded your current one, traded the honor of the believers for fleeting diplomatic interests and the approving smiles of colonialist masters, have been unceremoniously thrown into the dustbin of history. They commanded the barracks, the tanks, and the jets; they possessed the sheer material power to answer the piercing cries of Kunan-Poshpora and shatter the occupying forces, yet they chose the cowardly path of the worldly life. Know that they will meet Allah (swt) not with chests adorned with the glory of medals, but with backs broken by the crushing, inescapable burden of the cries of the oppressed.

Unfortunately, this treachery is not confined to the dark chapters of 1991; it is an unbroken, suffocating chain of capitulation. From the devastating compromises of Musharraf to the calculated surrenders of Bajwa, the blood of the martyrs and the honor of the believers have been treated as cheap currency. It was traded then, and it is being traded now, right under your very noses, under Asim Munir, who enforces a cease fire and squandered the opportunity in May 2025 to liberate all of Kashmir.

O Sincere Officers of the Ummah,

As you control the reins of power. How does your conscience not shatter? As we are in the blessed month of Ramadan, a time when the gates of mercy are thrown open and the hearts of the believers soften, how do you stand before your Lord? How do you line up in the tranquil rows of Taraweeh, bowing in peace, while just across the artificial nationalistic borders, the Ummah is bleeding from Palestine to Kashmir, crying out for the very armies you command to move? You break your fasts at tables overflowing with bounty in fortified cantonments, while the mothers and daughters of this Ummah break their fasts with tears of unresolved grief, under the bitter taste of occupation.

Your prayers are a hollow ritual if your swords remain sheathed, while the sanctities of Islam are violated. The cries of the oppressed do not need your empty condemnations, they need the thunder of your boots and the roar of your engines. Yet, you sit paralyzed, fearing the sanctions of Washington more than the wrath of the Almighty. The tears of the Ummah are a testament against you, a devastating reminder that true peace in Ramadan can never be tasted by those who abandon their brothers and sisters to the wolves.

The crime of Kunan-Poshpora is not an isolated incident. It is a recurring tragedy that unfolds wherever the Ummah is divided into nation-states and ruled by anything other than the Shariah of Allah. From the torture chambers of Arab dictators to the rape cells of the Indian and Zionist occupation forces, the underlying cause is the same: the absence of the Khilafah (Caliphate).

The ultimate, divinely mandated solution is the re-establishment of the Khilafah on the Method of the Prophethood. Only the Khilafah will discard the colonialist nation-state, mobilize the armies under the single, unyielding Ar-Rayah banner, and answer the cries of the oppressed not with treaties of surrender, but with the earth-shaking, liberating cry of Allahu Akbar

O Sincere Officers,

We pray that Allah (swt) grants you the vision to see beyond the colonialist nationalistic borders and makes you like Saad ibn Muadh (ra) and the noble Ansar (ra) of this Ummah. They did not calculate their support for the Deen based on the sanctions of Quraysh or the geopolitical risks; they boldly offered their wealth, their swords, and their very lives to establish the authority of Islam. Strike away the chains of the agent rulers, be the Ansar of this era, and trade the fleeting ranks of this world for the eternal honor of liberating the Ummah.

Allah (swt) said,

[إِنَّ اللَّهَ اشْتَرَىٰ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَنفُسَهُمْ وَأَمْوَالَهُم بِأَنَّ لَهُمُ الْجَنَّةَ يُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَيَقْتُلُونَ وَيُقْتَلُونَ وَعْدًا عَلَيْهِ حَقًّا فِي التَّوْرَاةِ وَالْإِنجِيلِ وَالْقُرْآنِ وَمَنْ أَوْفَىٰ بِعَهْدِهِ مِنَ اللَّهِ فَاسْتَبْشِرُوا بِبَيْعِكُمُ الَّذِي بَايَعْتُم بِهِ وَذَٰلِكَ هُوَ الْفَوْزُ الْعَظِيمُ]

“Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties in exchange for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah, so they kill and are killed. It is a true promise [binding] upon Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Quran. And who is truer to his covenant than Allah? So, rejoice in your transaction which you have contracted. And it is that which is the great attainment.” [TMQ Surah At-Tawbah 9:111].

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Muhammad Abdullah– Occupied Kashmir