NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, 31 August — Barely hours after saying he will take part in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections if the government met some conditions, separatist leader Shabir Shah yesterday made a dramatic U-turn declaring he would not contest.

"Let me make it clear that we are not participating in the forthcoming assembly elections," Shah said after meeting Congress party President Sonia Gandhi here.

The stunning turnaround, for which Shah offered no explanation, came soon after a joint statement issued by the separatist leader and the Kashmir Committee had said his Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party would join the polls if New Delhi agreed to seven "comprehensive confidence-building measures".

"We don’t shy away from the democratic exercise but it seems the elections are aimed only at giving an extension to the Farooq Abdullah regime in the state," Shah told reporters outside Sonia’s residence.

He was referring to Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party. Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, however, was not among the party’s candidates named yesterday. His son and Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah will instead be the candidate of the National Conference from the Ganderbal seat, which Farooq won in the last polls in 1996.

Shah earlier said he would contest the polls if the government freed political prisoners, reined in security forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations and set up a commission to probe custodial deaths and disappearances of people. His decision was announced after talks here with members of the Kashmir Committee headed by former Union minister Ram Jethmalani.

It followed Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s assertion that New Delhi would hold talks with elected representatives of the state to resolve what is known as the Kashmir problem. "If the government says it will talk to elected representatives, we have no hesitation in contesting the elections to prove our representative character," said Shah.

Meanwhile, two lesser-known separatists have decided to join the fray for the upcoming polls, defying calls by main separatist groups for a boycott.

Ghulam Mohiudin Sofi and Abdul Rashid Mirchal of the separatist Peoples Conference filed their nomination papers for contesting seats in the northern Kupwara district on Thursday.

Peoples Conference chief Sajjad Gani Lone said both Sofi and Mirchal had resigned from the party, and that their resignations had been accepted.

"They have left the party and are no longer part of it," he said yesterday. "I want to reiterate that the Peoples Conference will not be part of the upcoming electoral process," he said.

The Hurriyat yesterday kicked off a campaign to boycott the state polls from Sept. 16 to Oct. 8, but a top leader offered an unconditional dialogue with India to resolve the conflict. Senior Hurriyat leaders addressing more than a dozen Muslim congregations yesterday urged Kashmiris to boycott the polls.

"By holding these elections India wants to present this (Kashmir) struggle as India’s internal problem," Hurriyat Chairman Abdul Gani Bhat told a 5,000-strong prayer congregation in Sopore, 50 km north of Srinagar. "Kashmir is not India’s internal problem. It is an international issue," Bhat said and pressed people not to vote. "It is our humble advice to the people not to associate themselves with these sham elections," he said, as his followers chanted: "We want freedom... Allah is great."

In Srinagar’s main Jama Masjid, Umar Farooq, the former Hurriyat chairman, said the Hurriyat was ready to take part in "any polls linked to the resolution of the Kashmir issue."

"We are not against the principle of elections but we will never become a part of polls which just elect (state) governments," Farooq said.

Meanwhile, troops shot dead 13 militants, nine of them along Pakistan’s borders, while a soldier died as the two rival armies traded fire, an army spokesman said yesterday.

The fighting also led to the killings of two civilians and two political activists from Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party in separate overnight clashes elsewhere in the state, the police said. An army soldier was killed and four others injured in "unprovoked" artillery shelling by Pakistani troops in the northern Kashmir sector of Uri, the army said.