Kunan Poshpora to Bhoota Gappa: Dark Horror Stories Inspired by True Events in India

   The snow hadn't fully melted in their village when it happened.

Azaan still echoed through the bare walnut trees of Kunan, but for Abdul Rahim, the world had gone silent since that February night in 1991.

His daughter, Inaya, was only seventeen.

Bright. Spirited. She used to fold her dupatta over her hair like her mother did and laughed while chasing hens in the backyard. That morning, she had helped her Ammi make noon chai and told her father she had dreamt of rain.

She never mentioned the soldiers.

    When the men were locked inside the cowshed, and the women left vulnerable in their own homes, something in Abdul Rahim broke. He kicked the wooden door till his feet bled, screamed like a madman. But the snow muffled everything.

  By dawn, silence replaced what was once their life. Inaya’s bruises spoke stories she never could. Her voice was never heard again.

  The villagers buried their shame quietly. No police came. No justice followed. But Abdul Rahim stayed.

Others fled. But he planted a walnut tree where her dupatta was found, fluttering on the broken fence. "She will grow through it," he said. "Let no one say her story ended in whispers."

  They said the tree wouldn't take root. That land soaked in so much pain doesn’t give fruit.

But it grew.

And so did the stories.

Some say when the wind passes through Kunan at night, you can hear women sobbing near the stream. Some claim the soldiers who walk alone through this region still hear whispers, feel fingers brushing their necks. One battalion captain was found with his rifle turned on himself.

Abdul Rahim doesn't care for ghosts.

He still lives in the same house. Old now, legs weak, memory strong. He lights a lamp every evening beside Inaya’s photograph. He leaves her favorite walnut sweets on the window sill. No one touches them.

But every morning, they’re gone.

And in the hollow silence of the valley, Abdul Rahim waits—for justice, or for Inaya’s voice to return in the wind.

*Kunan-Poshpora: (True Historical Event)

This incident in February 1991, where soldiers are reported to have raped and killed women in the twin villages, has become a source of intense grief and fear. The story of the women's spirits haunting the area is a reflection of this horrific event.