Salahuddin: Changing track?

Srinagar, Jan. 29: Voters will not be attacked during the Jammu and Kashmir elections this year, militant groups have promised.

“If somebody comes out to vote willingly, we won’t stop him,” said Syed Salahuddin, the chairman of the United Jihad Council (UJC), an organisation that has over a dozen militant groups as members and is based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

This is the first time in 18 years of militancy that such an assurance has been given. Although voters have rarely been targeted even in the past, coffins would be left in public places in the nineties to warn people against going out to vote. Many died in strikes on rallies and polling stations.

“The militant organisations associated with the UJC will fully take part in the anti-poll campaign but guns will not be used to force people to boycott the election,” Salahuddin said in a statement to a local news agency.

Thirteen rebel groups, including the Hizb-ul Mujahideen, make up the UJC. Five others, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, enjoy observer status.

The statement comes three months after the UJC announced a ban on landmines and grenades in public places.

Police, however, expect a “surge” in attacks on politicians ahead of the elections to the 87-member Assembly due in autumn. Kashmir police chief S.M. Sahai said there were intelligence reports that the Hizb could try to subvert the polls. Politicians have been asked to take “extra precautions”, a senior police officer said.

Salahuddin’s statement promising that voters would be spared does not mention politicians, who bore the brunt of attacks during the last polls in 2002. Scores of candidates and party workers were killed.

The militant leader also warned that if troops coerced the people to vote, arms would be used against the security forces. As always, rebels have asked people to boycott the election.

Since the 1991 general election, when the boycott was near total, voter participation has been steadily rising. In 2002, the turnout was an impressive 46 per cent, except in Srinagar where it did not reach double figures.

The election, however, was not peaceful as militants selectively targeted politicians. The National Conference, led by Farooq Abdullah who is seen as a hawk, bore the brunt. In militant-infested Noorabad, party candidate Sakina Itoo could hardly step out of her house and was repeatedly targeted but her rival, the PDP’s Abdul Aziz Zargar, campaigned without trouble.

Violence has declined significantly since India and Pakistan launched a peace process in 2004. Grenade attacks and political killings, common in the past, are fewer now as Kashmir militant groups have come under pressure to shake off the terror tag post-9/11. Another reason could be that thousands of Hizb men have been killed by security forces.

Some of the recent attacks on politicians have been conducted by groups like the Save Kashmir Movement, Al Nasreen and the Farzandan-e-Milat, believed to be shadow organisations of major militant groups. The UJC chief said he has no knowledge about who runs these groups.