Islamabad: Pakistan is under international pressure to back upcoming elections in
Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, but it insists they are a "sham" and demands a
UN-mandated plebiscite instead.
"What will be the status of an election held under Indian bayonets, amid total
alienation of the people and rejection of the sham polls by them?" said foreign
ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan.
"No polls can be a substitute for plebiscite promised to the people of Kashmir by the
United Nations and India itself."
The United States has been pressing Pakistan to accept the polls as a chance for
moving to dialogue with India, and urging it not to interfere in the election
process.
Since September 2, more than 20 people have been killed in Kashmir, including state
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, in attacks linked directly
to the elections starting September 16. India blames the violence on Pakistani-backed
terrorists.
However, Islamabad says it has no control over what goes on in Jammu and Kashmir. It
says the polls are a "sham", citing the detentions of political leaders, boycotts by
others.
"Pakistan has not interfered in the past and will not interfere in the future," Khan
said.
He said the elections were being held in an area where more than 700,000 Indian Army
troops were deployed, and security was up to them.
"India is just finding excuses in order to put the blame on Pakistan," he
said.
Khan reiterated Pakistan's rejection of Indian accusations that it sponsors
terrorists in Kashmir.
However he stressed that Islamabad would never abandon its "moral, political and
diplomatic support for Kashmiri self-determination."
Pakistan, which is under military rule, says the polls are no substitute to solve
Jammu and Kashmir problem.
The main umbrella group of Kashmiri separatists, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference
(APHC), has spurned elections.
Militants fighting in Kashmir, including those allegedly supported by Pakistan, have
vowed to kill voters and candidates taking part.
"We not only stand by our announcement to disrupt the polls but we are vigorously
implementing it," Abdur Rafia, a senior leader of the Pakistani-based
Jamiat-ul-Mujahedin group, told AFP.
Rafia said his group had killed and would continue to kill "those taking part in or
willingly supporting the elections."
"We have killed around 25 activists, including candidates of the ruling National
Conference in the past three months. All of them were active in electioneering,"
Rafia said.
Khan called earlier elections in 1987 and 1993 "dramas that achieved nothing," and
said the outcome of this year's polls would be no different.
He alleged the 1987 polls were "massively rigged" and said they were the trigger for
the bloody Islamic militancy against India, which has claimed tens of thousands of
lives in the past 13 years.
India puts the toll at 36,500, but Khan says it is closer to 80,000.
India and Pakistan, both nuclear capable, have been in a precarious standoff with a
million troops on the border since December 2001 when Pakistan-backed terrorists
attacked Indian Parliament.
