August 03, 2006	Thursday	Rajab 7, 1427

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MUZAFFARABAD, Aug 2: Former AJK prime minister Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry on Wednesday demanded fresh elections to the state’s Legislative Assembly under an interim government in the wake of “proven rigging in the July 11 polls”.

“Now it has been proven beyond doubt that the July 11 elections were rigged by the federal government and its institutions to bring the Muslim Conference in power and the reasons for that are also an open secret,” he said, while talking to Dawn on phone from Mirpur.

“Firstly, it’s the huge money which Pakistan has received from the international community for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the quake hit areas (of Kashmir) and secondly it’s the Kashmir issue itself for which the Pakistani rulers needed their obedients in the AJK,” said Mr Chaudhry, who heads the newly formed Jammu Kashmir People’s Muslim League.

According to him, corrupt elements in the scam ridden federal government wanted equally corrupt people at the helm of affairs in the AJK which was why they had facilitated MC’s victory.

Recalling the alleged embezzlement of Rs560 million in Kashmir Liberation Cell funds during 1991-96, he said that since MC leaders had a record of loot and plunder they were the best choice for the corrupt elements in the federal government.

“The naked meddling in the AJK elections by the federal government has put a question mark on its own credibility and the transparency of the process,” he said.

“In fact they were sham elections which have divested the Kashmiris not only of their right to vote but also of their right to form a government of their choice,” he said.

He also referred to the statements by federal government functionaries before elections and audience granted by President Gen Pervez Musharraf to Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan and Sardar Attqiue Ahmed and said all the things amounted to pre-poll rigging in favour of MC.

“I have been constantly visiting foreign countries for the past several years to raise voice for the right to self-determination of Kashmiris. But how can I do this now when our own people were literally disallowed by the federal government and its institutions to exercise that right in the state assembly elections,” he said.

“We have been talking about human rights violations in held Kashmir, but now we will talk about usurpation of people’s rights in the AJK,” he said.

Mr Chaudhry feared that since the AJK government owed its existence to the Pakistani rulers, it would not be in a position to differ with any solution worked out by them, even if against the wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiris.

He also apprehended that AJK elections were a trailer of what the regime planned to do in Pakistan next year.

“I will therefore request all the Pakistani political parties to lend us support in getting the so called AJK elections nullified,” he said.

Mr Chaudhry said his party had also prepared a booklet exposing the rigging committed in elections which would be sent to political parties and intelligentsia in Pakistan.

The booklet carries the partisan statements of the federal government functionaries before elections, reports of national and international media on incidents of rigging as well relevant statements of the polling staff, he said.