September 17, 2002	Tuesday	Rajab 9, 1423

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MUZAFFARABAD, Sept 16: Dozens of people separately staged a demonstration and a sit-in outside the office of the United Nations Military Observers on Monday to condemn the legislative assembly elections in occupied Kashmir.

The demonstration was staged by the Jammu Kashmir People’s League (Farooq Rehmani faction) and its participants, holding banners, placards and black flags, chanted slogans for plebiscite and freedom as well as against the Indian occupation of Kashmir.

Mr Rehmani, who led the demonstration, presented a memorandum to the observers, calling upon the UN to reject the forced polling for constituting an illegal body in the state. He said the assembly could not make any breakthrough like the previous 10 legislative assemblies in the held territory.

He asked the UN secretary-general to play a proactive role for the early resolution of Kashmir dispute according to the world body’s resolutions.

The UN should adhere to the precedents and traditions followed by it in recent years under similar conditions for the resolution of international conflicts, he emphasized.

Mr Rehmani impressed upon the UN leadership to bear upon the dangerous situation in the region, which could not be brought to an end by local elections or local autonomy under Indian constitutional laws.

Activists of People’s Party Azad Kashmir and Qaumi Kashmir Movement, led by Shaukat Javed Mir and Syed Adnanul Hassan Gillani respectively, staged a joint sit-in at the place later.

They were also carrying banners and placards, inscribed with anti-poll and pro-plebiscite slogans. One of them read: “No to elections or selections, we want plebiscite.”

Speaking to the demonstrators, the PPAJK leader said elections were not the requirement of the Kashmiris, as they had offered more than 80,000 lives for freedom from India.

“Deserted polling stations and observance of ‘black day’ in occupied Kashmir speaks volumes of the fact that the Kashmiris have rejected the polls as misleading and contrary to UN resolutions,” Mir said.

A 15-member delegation of a Sadiqabad-based NGO, Movement for Peace and Welfare, which arrived here from Punjab on Sunday to express solidarity with the Kashmiris, also joined the sit-in.

Leader of the delegation, Mohammad Ismail Shad, said people of Pakistan fully backed the Kashmiris who were struggling for their legitimate rights, usurped by India at gunpoint.

The three leaders also delivered a memorandum at the UN office.

The Kashmir Liberation Cell did not organize any programme to condemn the mock polls.