Boycott threat to next month's Kashmir elections

LOCAL elections in the insurgency ridden, northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir will be held next month, six years after the government was dismissed when armed Islamic separatists began their fight for independence.

India's election commission in New Delhi yesterday said voting for Kashmir's assembly would be held on September 7th, 16th, 21st and 30th. It said the staggered voting would enable the security forces to "sanitise" polling stations and prevent armed Kashmiri separatists disrupting the elections.

The local elections, which are opposed by several separatist groups, will be the first to be held in India's only Muslim majority state since 1987 where more than 15,000 people have died since the civil war began nearly seven years ago.

Meanwhile, the pro independence All Party Hurriyat Conference, a coalition of 32 Kashmiri political, social and religious groups, has said it will boycott the election. Its leaders want a UN sponsored referendum to determine Kashmir's future, promised by India in 1948.

"Elections conducted by the security forces would be a sham" said Mr Shabir Shah, a senior Hurriyat leader.

Elections to Kashmir's six parliamentary seats were held in May amid allegations of voter coercion by the security forces.

India has tried to hold state elections in Kashmir on two occasions since 1994, but the local parties have declined to participate fearing militant reprisals.

State elections in Kashmir were last held in 1987 and were won the local National Conference in alliance with the federal Congress Party, amid allegations of widespread rigging which fuelled the subsequent separatist movement.

Meanwhile, the United Front coalition government, which assumed office after the general elections in June, is also determined to go through with Kashmir's state elections. In keeping with his party's election promise, Mr Deve Gowda was the first Indian prime minister to visits Kashmir since the insurgency started in 1989. He has also sanctioned several economic schemes for the war torn state.

The 49 year old dispute over Kashmir is the bone of contention with neighbouring Pakistan, which occupied a third of the principality in 1947 and lays, claim to the rest.

Kashmir's militant leaders and Pakistan have long been demanding a UN supervised plebiscite for Kashmir's self determination. They want to unite the erstwhile princely state, ruled by Hari Singh, the Hindu maharaja before Pathan raiders from Pakistan's North West Frontier raided Kashmir in October 1947, two, months after both countries became independent.

In 1972, after a third Indo Pakistan war, both countries signed a treaty in which they agreed to discuss the Kashmir issue bilaterally.