SRINAGAR, July 4: A leading Indian human rights activist said on Thursday that voter lists in occupied Kashmir had not been revised in the past 20 years, effectively disenfranchising young Kashmiris in the upcoming election.

“We have met people in south Kashmir and they have reasons to believe that voter lists have not been revised since 1983,” Tapan Bose told reporters in Srinagar.

“This means a large number of people who are dead are still on the voter lists,” he said.

“This also means that over the last 20 years thousands of young people who have become voters are being denied (their right to vote).”

He said the situation amounted to “rigging the polls right in the beginning”.

Bose, an Indian activist who heads the Kathmandu-based South Asia Forum for Human Rights, and other human rights leaders are visiting held Kashmir to study the mood ahead of elections due by Oct 14.

Bose said the activists would point out the discrepancies in the voter lists to India’s election commission.

Occupied Kashmir has been ruled for most of the past half-century by the National Conference party, currently a partner in Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s coalition government, but there have been widespread allegations of vote-rigging.

The All Party Hurriyat Conference has said it will boycott the polls, while Mujahideen have warned of “grave consequences” for any voters.

Bose said he would urge people to participate in the election “if it is a genuine, fair and honest process”.

“But I am not sure it is,” he said.—AFP