The Indian Government issued a statement saying that the sexual assaults never took place, calling the reports terrorist propaganda. Outraged at that response, Wajahat Habib-ullah, commissoner in charge of magistrates for all of Kashmir, resigned and asked for early retirement from the Indian Adminstrative Service. Mr. Habib-ullah is not a Kashmiri.

[ After a visit to the valley, Saifuddin Soz, a member of the Indian Parliament from Kashmir, asked the caretaker Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, to investigate the attack and intervene to stop the harassment of Kashmiris. ]

In Batamaloo, residents of the neighborhood, mostly civil servants and business owners, said this was the 9th or 10th raid by Indian troops, but they had never been held captive so long.

"What happened in Kunan is the essence of Kashmir today," the doctor, Altaf Hussain, said. "Are we speaking the truth or is India speaking the truth? We ask the world to decide."

Ghulam Mohiuddin, the local magistrate until all civil power was given to the military last year, said he was in his office on March 25 when he received a frantic call from home.

"They said that the forces had come and entered the houses on this lane, where they were beating women," he said in an interview. Rushing home, Mr. Mohiuddin was barred from entering the neighborhood and had to spend the night with in-laws. The next day, he obtained a police order allowing him to cross the military cordon.

"I found my two older sons totally beaten," he said. "My daughter had been slapped while holding on to her year-old baby."