LAHORE, Sept 4: Elections in occupied Valley are unwarranted in view of the chaotic conditions with about of half the Indian army deployed in the state to perpetuate the tenuous hold of India on Kashmir.

This was stated by the Kashmir Action Committee Pakistan on Wednesday.

A working committee meeting of the KACP, presided over by its president Dr Muzaffar Shah, rejected the forthcoming state assembly elections in Indian held Kashmir.

Through a resolution, the meeting said that in view of the prevailing insurgency against the regime in the state the elections would be an exercise in futility.

It was another matter if the voter were dragged to the election booths and forced them to cast votes.

In such circumstances free and fair elections could never take place. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference which represents 21 organizations of Kashmiris had very rightly decided to boycott the elections.

India was desperately trying to bring the APHC round to participate but it has refused point blank.

The resolution said that it was an anomaly that India claims to follow democratic practices but had chosen to hold elections which would be conducted in a similar fraudulent manner that had turned the people against it in the past and was a major cause for their uprising in 1988.

The insistence of the Indian Election Commission to hold elections in such turbulent conditions was suspicious and appeared to be motivated by political considerations.

The EC had disallowed the elections in Gujarat state because the communal riots had disrupted life, forcing a large number of people to live in make-shift shelters. But it was allowing elections to be held in Jammu and Kashmir where militancy was rampant and the Indian army was going to force the people to cast their votes at gun-point.

The fact that India does not allow free access to international media strengthens the suspicion that the elections would not be free and fair.

The resolution expressed resentment at the attitude of US-led western powers for lending support to fraudulent elections in occupied Kashmir. In their own countries they hold free and fair elections.

Their support was politically motivated to help India to legitimize its stranglehold on Kashmir. The KACP extended it full support to the righteous stand by APHC more than half of whose leadership had been detained along with hundreds of thousands of people only to prevent them from taking part in elections.

“This is in addition to the reign of terror and random killing of dozens on daily bases in the state.”

The KACP urged all the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to reject polls and make it known to UN and the world community that Kashmiris want the UN mandated plebiscite and not the sham elections. —Reporter