Women worst victims of Kashmir conflict: Naseem Shafai

JAIPUR - Noted Kashmiri poet, Naseem Shafai, has said that women have been the worst victims of the decades-long Kashmir conflict, stating that many of them, in the absence of any knowledge of their husbands' whereabouts, have come to be known as 'half-widows'.

According to Kashmir Media Service, Naseem Shafai, the first Kashmiri woman to win India’s Sahitya Akademi award, stated in an interview during the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival that the women of the Valley had been the worst victims of the conflict.

She said that many stakeholders and important people in the corridors of power had used the conflict to draw mileage out of it. Naseem Shafaie has penned two poetry books - 'Derche Machrith' (Open Windows) and 'Na Thsay Na Aks' (Neither Shadow Nor Reflection). The latter, a collection of 44 poems and 36 Ghazals, won her the 2011 Sahitya Akademi Award for Kashmiris.-Online