Two months into the dark harvest, a new kind of enterprise took root in the Kashmir valley, shielded by the immense powers granted to security forces under laws like the AFSPA, which often resulted in a climate of impunity for grave human rights violations ^1,2^. In a secluded, former veterinary hospital in the mountains, a Hindu-owned “rehabilitation and milking facility” was established. It was an open secret, protected by armed guards and justified by the authorities as a necessary response to the ongoing conflict, a dark echo of the systematic abuses documented by international observers ^3,4^.
The facility was a place of industrialized humiliation. Muslim girls and women, abducted from villages during cordon-and-search operations ^2,^ were brought here in trucks with blacked-out windows. They were sorted by age upon arrival: pre-teens, teenagers, and women. The pre-teens, the youngest and most terrified, were designated as “Calves.” The teenagers were “Heifers,” and the women, often mothers, were “Cows.”
Their first day was the destruction of their identity. Their clothes were burned and their heads shaved. They were hosed down with cold water and then subjected to a deeply degrading medical examination. A man in a lab coat, a disgraced doctor from Delhi, would probe and inspect them, commenting loudly on their “breeding potential” and “milk production capacity” as if they were livestock. Each was then fitted with a steel collar, engraved with a number, and a permanent metal tag was pierced through their ear.
The “milking” was the centerpiece of their daily existence. It was a ritual of public sexual humiliation designed to break their spirit. Twice a day, the “Cows” and “Heifers” were herded into the main milking parlor. It was a long, sterile room with two rows of steel stalls. Each woman was strapped into a stall, her arms and legs immobilized, her body bent forward over a padded bar. Her breasts were forced through holes in the stall wall and attached to cold, mechanical pumps.
But the pumps were not for milk. They were for stimulation. As the machines rhythmically sucked and pulled on their nipples, a handler would move behind them. He would violate them anally with a lubricated, vibrating metal rod, forcing a physical reaction. The combination of pain, pleasure, and utter helplessness was designed to make their bodies betray them. The goal was to induce lactation through a constant, torturous cycle of hormonal and physical stimulation. Some women, after weeks of this unrelenting regimen, began to produce small, pathetic amounts of milk, which was collected in glass jars and sold to a secretive clientele as a symbol of their total subjugation.
The “breeding” was even more brutal. The facility kept a stable of men, captured militants or other prisoners, who were used as studs. They were drugged to enhance their virility. The “Cows” and “Heifers” selected for breeding were strapped to a breeding table, a gynecological chair with stirrups. A handler would first rape them to “prepare” them, and then the stud would be brought in to impregnate them. The act was clinical, violent, and performed in front of an audience. The women were forced to watch as their bodies were used to create a new generation of orphans, children who would be raised in Hindu orphanages, purged of their heritage.