Hurriyat poll boycott call due to militants' threat: Omar

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said the turnout in Srinagar Parliamentary seat should act as an eye-opener for separatists groups especially Hurriyat Conference who have been playing a politics of fear.      

Omar refused to term the polling in Srinagar as dull and said, "You can always see it as a moderate turnout."  He advised Hurriyat Conference to stand up and look up writing on wall clearly that people have come out in defiance of their boycott call, which too was given after being threatened from across the border.      

"He (the Mirwaiz Umer Farooq) is always susceptible to pressure. Hurriyat decided to boycott the poll due to the threats of militants," Omar told reporters here after he exercised his franchise along with his wife Payal Abdullah.      

The Chief Minister said the separatists were playing a politics of fear under pressure from across the border. "But this (boycott call) is no cause of worry for us," he said.      

The separatist amalgam, led by the Mirwaiz, initially had announced that it would not issue a boycott call of the Lok Sabha elections. However, later on in a complete about-turn, it called for a poll boycott in the Kashmir valley.