“Time and time again, I have come across a photograph of my mother carrying a dagger (a knife) in her hand. Whenever there is any news report about her, every media house in India, including the so-called progressive outlets, frequently makes use of such a picture. They do so in order to depict mother as a ‘deranged and distraught religious extremist’. Sadly, some of our own people assent to it as well. But what they do not tell their readers is that mother had encouraged the use of knives by Kashmiri women to resist attempts of sexual abuse by men, especially Indian Armed Forces.
On account of their Islamophobia, frantic violence and irrationality are highlighted as the dominant themes in the portrayal of a politically conscious Muslim woman who opposes India’s colonial regime in her homeland.”
-Ahmed Bin Qasim whose mother & father are both political prisoners