The Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik said on Tuesday that the “rejection of so-called elections by 95 percent people is a clear indication that alienation of people of Kashmir from India is complete.”.
In a statement issued after the culmination of four-phased urban local body polls, the JRL said: “By government of India’s own admission, 95 percent people’s rejection of these so-called elections, forced upon them by New Delhi, is a clear indication that the alienation of people of Kashmir from India is complete.”
“People of Kashmir have sent a clear message to New Delhi,” the JRL said.
The leadership deeply appreciates and commends people for political maturity and commitment to the cause of self-determination shown by them in a comprehensive boycott of this “sham election”, the statement read, adding that this “coercive and harassing exercise of so-called elections, where candidates, polling areas and even polling stations were undisclosed by the ruling authorities and where scores of secret candidates were chosen unopposed, was mainly carried out this time to help the Bharatiya Janata Party in its electoral prospects in India next year and to thrust the party on people of Kashmir.”
“If government of India always projected to people in India and the outside world a good percentage of participation of Kashmiri people in its so-called elections as an endorsement of India’s rule, by the same yardstick the government of India should now accept people’s near-total boycott of these elections as a referendum against it,” the statement read.
By rejecting the elections, the JRL said, people of Kashmir have “conveyed that being under forcible control since 1947, the so-called elections have made no difference to them because directly or indirectly, through pro-India regional parties, it is government of India which rules them and whose writ runs here.”
“In reality, it is the military might that rules in Kashmir and whose consequence is severe repression and coercion. In such situations, democratic processes lose all credibility and carry no meaning and are reduced to a farce,” the JRL statement read, adding that J&K is a dispute and its people are asking for its resolution.
“People are not interested in selection or election and no election can ever be a substitute for that resolution or a way to it. The government of India should accept this fact and work towards the resolution of the conflict as per the democratic principle of people’s aspirations and will.”
Meanwhile, the JRL expressed serious concern over sedition charges against two Kashmiri students studying at the Aligarh Muslim University for allegedly planning nimaz-e-jinaza (funeral prayers) for scholar-turned-militant Manan Wani.
“It is very unfortunate and deeply disturbing that Kashmir students studying outside J&K are being targeted,” the JRL said, demanding that concerned authorities should “put an end to harassment and drop charges of sedition against the two students.”