India

Security clampdown for Kashmir election

Article published on the 2008-12-19 Latest update 2008-12-19 15:44 TU

An Indian police officer in Srinagar.
(Photo: Reuters)

India has deployed thousands of troops in the Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar, ahead of the final round of a seven-stage election in the disputed state. Leaders of separatist groups which have called for a boycott, have been placed under house arrest.

The Kashmir Valley is under "undeclared curfew" ahead of the 24 December vote, reports correspondent Shujaat Bukhari. Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were placed under house arrest on Friday.

But the majority of voters have ignored their call for a boycott, with turnout over 50 per cent in the six rounds of voting which have already taken place.

Bukhari believes that the boycott does not mean lack of support for a breakaway from Delhi's rule but says that voters hope the state assembly will tackle some of their day-to-day concerns.

"There is no problem with the process of elections but the atmosphere which is surrounding these elections is not free," he told RFI.

The Indian army says that it killed a top commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba armed group known as Mudassir along with two other gunmen in the south of the state on Friday.

Delhi claims to have evidence that the group trained the perpetrators of this month's Mumbai attacks.

In the Pakistani province of Baluchistan on Friday, hundreds of demonstrators burnt the Indian flag and an effigy of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in protest at charges of Pakistani connections to the attacks.

"India wants to steal our water in Kashmir and that is why it is piling pressure on Pakistan following the attacks in Mumbai," local politician Naseer Ahmed Bacha Khan told the protesters.