SRINAGAR, 9 May — Leaders of the dominant rebel group in Indian Kashmir said yesterday it would boycott forthcoming state elections and announced "severe punishments" for violators.
"Hizbul Mujahedeen will boycott all the polls held under Indian constitution in the state," Saiful Islam, the organization’s chief commander of operations said in a statement. Islam called on all Muslims in Kashmir to boycott the polls due later this year. "Those who will defy the boycott call will be given severe punishment by the mujahedeen," warned the militant leader.
India has said the elections will be free and fair, but Islam said the polls were not a substitute for the right to self-determination.
"Free and fair polls offer no solution to Kashmir dispute," he said. "Holding polls will be a futile exercise and our participation will amount to defeating our own selves. "Those who will participate in elections will be regarded as traitors and punished accordingly."
Two other militant groups have threatened to kill those who participate in the elections in Kashmir.
Hizb’s statement comes as the group faced internal conflict, sparked by the Pakistan-based leadership expelling three senior former commanders of the group on Saturday. The expelled leaders, backed by two other commanders, have opposed the decision and there has been speculation that there could be division within the group.
Fresh violence in Kashmir has claimed the lives of 12 activists and three civilians, police said yesterday. Meanwhile, a Kashmiri pro-independence leader detained by the authorities was yesterday roughed up by activists of the radical Hindu party Shiv Sena, the separatist’s movement alleged.
Yasin Malik, who has been in the custody for six weeks, was manhandled and subjected to verbal abuse by the Sena activists when he was taken for a hospital check-up in Jammu, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said. "The assault on our leader can have serious repercussions," the JKLF’s acting chairman, Javed Mir, said in a statement.
