ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, 15 August — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday dismissed India’s plans to hold elections in its part of Kashmir as a farce while defending controversial elections at home later this year by insisting they would be free and fair.

In a forceful speech to the nation to mark Pakistan’s 55th anniversary of separation from India, he covered key issues from a tumultuous year in which his country teetered on the brink of war and was cast into the spotlight as a major troublespot.

Musharraf vowed to stick to his pledge to the world after the Sept. 11 attacks to crush religious militancy, but also addressed the domestic audience by underlining support for the "principled" struggle of separatists in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

He called on all Pakistanis, particularly religious leaders, to join the struggle against "cowardly" fanatics who targeted women and children, a reference to attacks on Christian targets near Islamabad last week in which 11 people died. "I am confident that we will, Inshallah, break the back of all these criminals and organizations supporting them," he said.

But against a backdrop of military tensions with nuclear-armed rival India, Musharraf said Pakistan could not be blamed for separatist violence that has racked India’s sector of the Himalayan region since an insurgency began over 10 years ago.

Musharraf was careful to balance less popular and highly risky policies of stamping out militancy and backing the West in Afghanistan with themes he knew would strike a chord among Pakistan’s 140 million people — most notably Kashmir.

He called the self-determination struggle of "our Kashmiri brothers" a "sacred trust...which can never be compromised", drawing applause from government and military leaders at the state convention center in Islamabad. He said India’s announcement of elections for September and October was an effort to give a mask of legitimacy to its "illegal occupation" of Jammu and Kashmir. "The government of India has organized such farcical elections in the past," he said. "These so-called elections have invariably been rigged and have always been boycotted by the Kashmiri people."

"Pakistan cannot accept any responsibility for developments inside Indian-occupied Kashmir, nor can India try to shift the onus of the failure of elections to Pakistan," he said referring to Indian complaints about Pakistani support for the separatists.

India slammed Musharraf’s remarks on Kashmir and said it indicated Islamabad’s plans to sabotage the poll. "His denigration of the electoral process and indirect exhortations to boycott the elections, coupled with disowning responsibility for terrorist activity sponsored to disrupt the electoral process...indicate our concerns that Pakistan intends to sabotage these elections are well founded," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told reporters in New Delhi.