Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Indian farmer's daughter is most bad-ass woman in the world

Xeni Jardin at 7:45 pm Thu, Oct 1, 2009

— FEATURED —

Book Review

The Man Who Laughs: grotesque Victor Hugo potboiler was the basis for The Joker

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle
india_gun_2_1491850c.jpg

A quick-thinking farmer's daughter disarmed a man who broke into her home in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In a phenomenally bad-ass series of moves worthy of a Tarantino screenplay, 21-year-old Rukhsana Kausar attacked him with an axe, then shot him dead with his own gun. The civilians' residence is 20 miles away from the ceasefire line between Indian and Pakistani forces. The intruder was reported to have been a combatant from the other side of the border.

Miss Kausar said she had never fired an assault rifle before but had seen it in films and could not stand by while her father was being hurt. "I couldn't bear my father's humiliation. If I'd failed to kill him, they would have killed us," she said.
"Farmer's daughter disarms terrorist and shoots him dead with AK47" (Telegraph, via Maggie Koerth-Baker)

Video after the jump.

Axe vs. AK47s in Kashmir (NDTV)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE:  International • Maverick Spirit

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • Anonymous

    Seeing victims of crime throw out the play-book and prevail never gets old (especially when the perps get owned so severely, as in this case).

  • Anonymous

    I do think they are different stories – the latter makes no mention of the girl at all, or the terrorists having been shot. Also, the version i saw claimed that the terrorist had been trying to force the girl to marry him

  • Anonymous

    But but but, didn’t she give him a chance to surrender? Do they have anything like Miranda Rights in India? How does she know the guy didn’t want to give himself up at the last moment?

    Well, in some parts of America, idiots would be asking these questions. Good on her for standing tall.

  • Doug in Colorado

    Rukhsana Kausar took an axe,
    And gave the terrorist Forty Whacks.
    And when the job was neatly done,
    She shot him with his own damn Gun.

    Bring that girl and her family to the States for their own protection, and because she’s earned it.

    Doug

  • benher

    Nothing like getting 0wn3d by your own firearm! He’s probably lucky she switched weapons midway through – death by ax sounds… slow.

  • Anonymous

    #1: I was hoping she tossed out some witty banter before she chopped him, some thing like, “Hey, I have something I need to AX you.” But in native tongue, of course.

  • The Lizardman

    Comparing and contrasting the reactions to this story and the one about the student with the sword hacking the burglar’s hand off is making me giggle

  • Anonymous

    I would like to introduce this woman to one Roman Polanski.

    She might reject him as being to old for her

    You don’t have to go to India for bad-ass women, hillbilly women are all pretty damn bad-ass — and they have prior experience shooting guns.

    Yeah, but who wants to take a chance they’ll end up with someone like that McCready woman?

  • ruth.john71

    i am a pretty girl who never marry seeking of a friedship

  • Anonymous

    If this had happened in Britain, she’d go to jail for life.

  • rishab ghosh

    the news story and video are the same story. see also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8279929.stm

    the confusion is due to sloppy editing of the translation in the subtitles. the mother in the video says “beta” which means son but could also mean child. obviously nobody who knew it was the daughter (who appears in the video posing with the rifle) checked the subtitles.

  • Anonymous

    But did she read him his rights and offer him legal representation?

    Besides, Whoopi, was it an “attack-attack” or simply an “attack?”

  • absimiliard

    I’m with The Lizardman @26.

    I find the difference in reactions to this story and the story of the student with the samurai sword fascinating.

    Where’s everyone saying that no one should have the right to defend their home or themselves? Where are the people saying that she should have just fled?

    Is the difference that she is a girl? Or is the difference that her father was being attacked?

    And why is it different, morally (if it is), to refuse to feed and shelter a home-invader vs refusing to allow them to steal your belongings?

    I’m not convinced the situations are similar, but I smell hypocrisy.

    As for myself. I’m with the “If I wasn’t married” crowd. She’s incredible.

    -abs really has a lot of respect for someone who takes on three armed combatants with a hatchet and after taking one of their assault rifles drives of the remaining survivors, like HUGE RESPECT, like “I will never ever invade a farm where this woman lives” kinds of respect

  • Steve

    @absimiliard +1! Where’s all the anti-gun flag waving? She was supposed to scream and run away.

  • Anonymous

    From the sounds of it, he wasn’t a terrorist. He was a thief.

  • Anonymous

    I didn’t know they had Texans in India.

  • Anonymous

    #3 posted by Anonymous, October 1, 2009 8:15 PM

    brandishes AK-47…”so anyway dad, about that arranged marriage…”

    Dad: Have to arrange another one. Mohammud has fled to America after the incident.

  • Anonymous

    “Those Midwest farmers’ daughters really make you lose a fight . . . “

  • forgeweld

    If only it had been a zombie attack.

  • orwellian

    Wow! The only question I have is whether or not she remembered to ask Achmed the Dead Terrorist if he felt lucky before she shot him.

  • etmthree

    If I weren’t already married…

  • Anonymous

    brandishes AK-47…”so anyway dad, about that arranged marriage…”

  • Anonymous

    It seems like the story told by the news story and the newspaper differ.

  • Anonymous

    “beta” is the masculine name for girls with brave attitude in the region indo-pak.

  • cory

    “absconding”. Awesome.

  • wgmleslie

    If you disarm and kill a combatant in your own home, do you get to keep the gun?

  • Anonymous

    What makes this story even more delightful is its placement right above the one with that repulsive quote by Roman Polanski.

  • FoetusNail

    Only if you can quickly bury the bastard in the backyard and be back having coffee and reading BB before the cops arrive.

  • Anonymous

    “Miss Kausar said she had never fired an assault rifle before but had seen it in films and could not stand by while her father was being hurt. ”

    Mikhail T. Kalashnikov’s vision and simple design has again proven correct. He designed for conscripts of the Soviet Army who could have been raised on a farm and never had seen a gun before.

  • Xeni Jardin

    It seems like the story told by the news story and the newspaper differ.

    I’m guessing that due to the intense political pressures at play between Pakistan and India, the story will end up being used as political football to stoke nationalist passions. I would expect for this to become the stuff of factualy fuzzy urban legend promptly.

  • 13tales

    One hopes the family doesn’t suffer reprisals from the militants, and that the daughter hasn’t been too badly traumatised by attacking a man with an axe then shooting him.

    Still, most of this story is made of awesome :)

  • Lauren O

    I would like to introduce this woman to one Roman Polanski.

  • Anonymous

    It is not Hollywood over there; agree with 13TALES.

  • jfrancis

    When I was 11 in 1975 I spent a week in Kashmir without my parents on a school trip. (We were living in Amritsar for a year)

    Here’s a snapshot I took. My principal was one of the guys in the rear.

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/jfrancis/India1975/Kashmir1975_1.jpg

  • Vinayak

    The girl and the family had to leave her house and move to another town.

    ‘[...]reports suggest that terrorists “have spread the word of taking revenge on the family, not only because the 18-year-old killed their commander Abu Osama, but because the act has sent a message of resistance”.

    “These words have been intercepted by the state police and intelligence agencies as well,” the officer added.
    Rukhsana’s mother Rashida Begum said: “What has irked the Lashkar the most is the way media has showcased Rukhsana’s courage and her bravery in recalling before the media the episode of killing the terrorist. It’s for this reason the militants have become angry and desperate.”‘

    http://www.hindustantimes.com/Brave-Rukhsana-s-family-shifts-to-Rajouri/H1-Article1-460742.aspx

  • MrJM

    You don’t have to go to India for bad-ass women, hillbilly women are all pretty damn bad-ass — and they have prior experience shooting guns.

    – MrJM

  • Vinayak

    Women in that region have been fighting for a long time now. Some of the villages have VDCs (Village Defense Committees) whose members are given arms training and given a 303 rifle to protect their villages:
    http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit02212005/kashmir.asp
    http://health.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/23jk.htm

    I am surprised that they didn’t protect the girl’s identity. Militants in the area are known to actively attack VDC members and people who oppose them:

    “In April 2004, eight Lashkar-e-Tayyaba fighters, avenging the death of their comrades, attacked the village of Dufali , when the men were out. Khatoom Begum, a villager who had learnt to use a rifle from her son, a VDC member, to protect their cattle, fired her weapon at the attackers and saved the lives of many before being killed herself.”

    http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=1632