Left In The Lurch

In the Jammu and Kashmir’s downgrade to a Union Territory, most of the autonomous Commissions were closed down. These included the Commission for Women. Saima Bhat met some of the women who are desperately keen to know what happens to their cases that the closed Commission was hearing

- Saima Bhat

Living with domestic violence was ‘the way of life’ for Shahzada, a mother of two kids.

The humiliation and pain crossed the threshold when she was allegedly set afire by her husband and in-laws. Somehow, she survived. After nursing her wounds for a few weeks at Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital, she finally gathered her courage to file a case with Jammu and Kashmir State Commission for Women and Child Rights.

Two days after filing the case, when Shahzada visited the Commission office at Bemina to know the status of her complaint, she found its gate locked and the commission closed, literally.

“It took me a decade to speak up for my rights because I always wanted to save my marriage so that my kids don’t have to live without their mother or father,” Shahzada regretted. “But unfortunately when I got the courage to face my fate, my only hope, the women’s commission, was closed down.”

Shahzada is one of around 220 women who had their lives linked with the commission. They expected justice as their cases were under different stages of persuasion but the Commission locked its doors in wake of the abrogation of the Article 370 and the change in status of Jammu and Kashmir to a Union Territory (UT).

When Shahzada was allegedly set afire, she said, she was taken to the district hospital in Kupwara where doctors referred her to the SMHS hospital in Srinagar because her condition was not good. “For two days my family was not informed,” she alleged. “Then nobody from the local police station visited me to record my statement.”