Top Kashmir leader says India has silenced dissenting voices as region votes in final phase of polls
A key resistance leader in Indian-controlled Kashmir says the regional polls to choose a local government will not resolve the decades-old conflict over the disputed region
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Ahead of the final phase of a local election in Indian-controlled Kashmir, a key resistance leader says the regional polls to choose a local government will not resolve the decades-old conflict that is at the heart of a dispute between New Delhi and Pakistan.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who has spent most of the last five years under house detention, said the polls are being held as political voices contesting India’s sovereignty over the region remain silenced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government stripped the region of its long-held semi-autonomy in 2019.
The detained leader said in a phone interview with The Associated Press that the election, touted by the Modi government as a “ festival of democracy ” in the region, cannot be an alternative to resolving the dispute.
“These elections cannot be the means to address the larger Kashmir issue,” said Mirwaiz, who is also an influential Muslim cleric and custodian of the six-century-old grand mosque in the region’s main Srinagar city, the urban heartland of anti-India sentiment.
