MUZAFFARABAD: A protest was held to condemn the alleged farcical parliamentary elections conducted in the Indian held Kashmir, using the force of more than 750,000 military and paramilitary troops.

The demonstration was held by the activists of Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir, an organisation of the post-1989 immigrants from the Indian held Kashmir. The participants of the protest paraded through the main thoroughfare outside the press club, while chanting slogans against India and the ‘sham electoral exercise’ in the Indian Territory.

The rally in Muzaffarabad coincided with the polling the second of the six-constituencies of India’s lower house of parliament, Lok Sabha, in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The polling in the remaining four constituencies will be held in late April and early May.

Talking to the reporters at the occasion, the key organiser of the rally, Uzair Ahmed Ghazali, pointed out that the people of Jammu and Kashmir had been struggling for a United Nations (UN) sponsored referendum to determine their future status, on their own free accord, not any electoral drama under the shadow bullets and bayonets.

“By holding the current and the previous sham elections, India has tried to cook up excuses to legitimise its occupation of the state, but neither the Kashmiris, not the international community, have ever subscribed to the misguided stance,” he claimed.

He called upon the people of the occupied Kashmir to stage a complete boycott of the parliamentary elections, as a tribute to their slain brothers and sisters, who had laid down their lives for freedom.

Ghazali also claimed that the turnout figures in the polls were fictitious to hoodwink the international community.

“The UN and the international community must realise that the peace in South Asia will remain a distant dream in the presence of an unresolved Kashmir issue,” he said.