Jklf Protests Against Polls In Kashmir

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) held a demonstration outside the United Nations decrying the holding of elections in Kashmir.

About 40 people, including women and children, gathered at the Ralph Bunch Park to expose what it described as the drama of so called elections in India.

The demonstrators, holding placards which had slogans like No election but liberation and No peace without justice written on them, thronged the park though the United Nations was closed on account of Presidents Day. We wanted the event to coincide with the first phase of election in J&K, said Mohammed Haleem Khan, president of JKLF in North America

 

, which organised the rally with support from other pro-independence groups.

In his brief address, Khan said Kashmir has nothing to do with the elections in India. Our demand is independence and we do not want either India or Pakistan to meddle in our affairs, Khan said. Leave us in peace, he added.

Abdur Rehman, chairman of the Kashmir Federation of the US, said the holding of election in Kashmir is a drama as Kashmir is not part of India.

Enough is enough. So many killings have taken place in Kashmir, (and) now it is time we should stop all bloodbath in Kashmir. Let there be peace now, he said.

Mondays protest was the first of a three-part series planned by the JKLF. We are going to hold a protest on February 27, a day before another round of elections in Kashmir, and finally on March 6 to coincide with the last round of elections in Kashmir, Khan said.

At the end of the one-hour demonstration, representatives of the JKLF went to the Indian Mission to hand a letter of protest. But the officers there declined to meet with our representatives, Khan said. We left one of our fliers at the mission.