Protesters, police clash as polls open in Indian Kashmir amid separatist boycott call
AIJAZ HUSSAIN
AP News
Nov 17, 2008 12:26 EST
Large crowds voted in some towns in Indian Kashmir on Monday while protesters clashed with police in others as state elections began amid boycott calls by Muslim separatists.
The elections — to be held in phases over more than a month in an attempt to avert violence — come after some of the worst protests against Indian rule in the country’s only Muslim-majority state and a crackdown on separatist leaders who oppose the polls.
“You can’t have free and fair elections in the presence of hundreds of thousands” of occupying forces, said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key separatist leader who has been under house arrest for three days.
Separatists say the elections will only entrench New Delhi’s hold on the troubled Himalayan region.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favor independence from India or a merger with Pakistan. The region is divided between the two countries and both claim it in its entirety.
Despite the calls for a boycott, long lines of voters stretched around polling booths in several towns north of the capital, Srinagar.
Overall, about 55 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots Monday, said B.R. Sharma, the state’s chief election officer.
But it varied from district to district. In many Muslim-dominated areas, turnout was so low that paramilitary soldiers and police outnumbered voters.
In Bandipore, a town 40 miles north of Srinagar, police fired tear gas at dozens of protesters, local police official Mohammed Yousuf said. Two people were detained and one was injured, he said.
More than 30 separatist leaders who called for an election boycott have been detained in recent days under a law that allows police to hold people for up to two years without trial.
The recent pro-independence demonstrations were the largest in Indian Kashmir in two decades. They were met with a tough crackdown by government forces, and at least 48 people were killed.
The elections are being staggered to allow the government to deploy thousands of security forces in each area.
Police said they feared more unrest, particularly from militant separatist groups, although insurgents have vowed not to use violence to enforce the boycott. Campaigning was mostly peaceful.
Militant separatist groups have been fighting since 1989 to end Indian rule. The uprising and subsequent Indian crackdown have killed about 68,000 people, most of them civilians.
Source: AP News
Tags: demand freedom, elections, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, protesters
Peace and Justice Post 
November 18, 2008 at 1:22 pm |
One more propaganda it shows you live in illusions nothing else my point is to the educated peoples atleast india has a gutts to go for elections but about to POK and Northern areas they cant vote so easly in my recent comments to all peoples i have assured that in kashmir people will caste there vote with anger of seperatist as they are fedup there policies and they donn’t talk about common peoples.All are fedup with loss of life of millitancy as they know who is creating and utelizing the kashmiri common peoples.Now they want peace and you will see recent month there will be solution of kashmir it will merged into india as no option for pakistan army ther is treamondous pressure on them.
Rest you know what is good for kashmir.
LikeLike
November 18, 2008 at 2:10 pm |
The news item about Kashmir by Associated Press that I put on my blog is not an article; it is purely news and such news about the present situation in Kashmir and the elections there have been produced by many news agencies in India and a around the world.
So, if you regard a news such as this as propaganda, then I think the best thing for me is not to comment upon what you have said. But I hope you will have the time to read an article ‘Hindu terrorism’ in my today’s blog that is written by a prominent Indian academic and political observer, Professor Badri Raina. Dr Raina is a Kashmiri Hindu, a Pandit, living in Delhi.
LikeLike