In Kashmir, Casting Ballots Can Be a Risky Endeavor

Torn between threats of increased militant attacks and promises of government reform, voters here in the rugged Himalayan territory of Kashmir must decide beginning today whether to risk casting ballots in crucial state elections.

With tensions over the disputed region still high between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan, the vote is one of Kashmir’s most important--and could end up one of its bloodiest.

The voting will be staggered over a month to allow Indian authorities to move half a million local police and federal soldiers to guard the polling places in Jammu and Kashmir state, which includes the Indian-held portion of Kashmir.

But on Sunday, separatist guerrillas who have demanded a vote boycott carried out the latest in a rash of assassination attempts, sending a clear signal that they won’t be deterred by the massive security operation.

State Tourism Minister Sakina Itoo narrowly escaped an ambush that left two of her bodyguards dead. When a vehicle in her motorcade struck a land mine, the guerrillas opened fire, but Itoo was not injured in the fusillade.

On Wednesday, militants killed the Indian state’s law minister, Mushtaq Ahmad Lone. Earlier, in May, the guerrillas killed Abdul Ghani Lone, a popular and moderate separatist leader.

At least 110 people have been killed in Kashmir since the election campaign began in August. Of the dead, 62 were members of the security forces, 26 were civilians, and 22 were political activists, according to police.

Indian security forces say they killed more than 395 militants in Jammu and Kashmir between June and August.

New Delhi says that the current election violence is being encouraged by Pakistan, which has called the polling a farce and maintains that India is obliged under United Nations resolutions to allow Kashmiris to vote for union with Pakistan, continued affiliation with India or outright independence.

“Misusing the rationale of the war against terrorism, India has sought to de-legitimize the Kashmir freedom struggle, tarnish Pakistan with the brush of terrorism and drive a wedge between it and its coalition partners,” Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Thursday.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Sunday that Musharraf’s rhetoric has “crossed all limits.”

Musharraf insists that he is keeping his promise to the U.S. to stop guerrillas infiltrating the roughly one-third of Kashmir under Indian control. But India’s intelligence agencies say that the militants’ incursions continue with the aid of the Pakistani military, which is under Musharraf’s command.

Citing radio intercepts, a senior Indian intelligence official said in an interview Saturday in New Delhi that militant commanders based in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir have issued orders to their followers to disrupt the state elections in Indian-held areas.

Pakistan’s military intelligence organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, “does not directly get involved in specifying the operations,” according to the Indian source. “However, they do give general directions.”

In radio conversations July 28 and 30, militant commanders in Pakistani Kashmir told fighters in Indian-held Kashmir to make sure that the voter turnout is less than half that of the last poll, in 1996, according to the Indian intelligence official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the clandestine nature of his work.

One commander suggested working through Muslim leaders, scholars and local businesspeople to build support for a boycott, according to the Indian official.

“Even motivate them by saying there is not a single household that is not affected. Make everyone understand your point and the only solution that is available,” a transcript of the alleged radio message says. “You need to stop them [voting] by any means.

“Speak to all the concerned people, and in case they do not agree to your counseling or advice, then deal with them accordingly,” the transcript goes on. “Prescribe the treatment according to the ailment. One or two days prior to the election, pressure should be maintained to scare them.”

Only 53.4% of eligible voters cast ballots in 1996, down sharply from the 74.8% turnout in a 1987 vote. The pro-India National Conference party’s victory in 1987 was widely rejected as rigged, and an all-out guerrilla insurgency began.

In an Aug. 6 radio communication, another militant commander wanted to know why he hadn’t yet received the names and addresses of candidates in the elections, according to the Indian intelligence official.

“I did not confirm from you the details,” a transcript of that purported conversation says. “Have you understood? About all those persons who are candidates for the election in ‘held Kashmir,’ I want to have their addresses.”

It’s impossible to independently verify the authenticity of the alleged radio intercepts, and they could easily be more rounds fired in the propaganda war being waged by both India and Pakistan. But the large number of candidates and party activists targeted in recent weeks is consistent with a well-organized campaign of intimidation by different groups to ensure that whoever wins will be unable to claim a mandate to negotiate the state’s future with the Indian government.

For weeks, U.S. and other Western diplomats have been pressuring politicians on both sides of the cease-fire line dividing Kashmir, in an effort to prevent a boycott by the loose, and fractious, coalition of separatist groups called the All Party Hurriyat Conference.

Indian and Pakistani forces are still dangerously close to war, Musharraf warned the U.N. He added: “Peace in South Asia is hostage to one accident, one act of terrorism, one strategic miscalculation by India.”

Jammu and Kashmir’s pro-India leader, Farooq Abdullah, is hoping that his son, Omar, will lead the ruling National Conference to reelection and maintain a political dynasty in the state.

If the younger Abdullah, India’s former junior foreign minister, takes control of Indian Kashmir, he has promised to press for more autonomy, but his definition falls far short of what the separatists want.

Hurriyat leaders say the Kashmir dispute cannot be resolved by voting for a new state assembly--instead of an election testing the territory’s U.N.-affirmed right to self-determination--and they have reason to be skeptical of Vajpayee’s assurances that they can trust this election.

Even Vajpayee has admitted that previous state polls were neither free nor fair, and the widespread voting irregularities in 1987 helped incite Jammu and Kashmir’s 15-year insurgency.

Yousuf Shah was one of the assembly candidates in 1987, and by most accounts he was winning on election night when an official began physically beating him and an aide, Yasin Malik.

The official results said that Shah lost, along with the rest of the opposition, and they handed victory to Abdullah’s National Conference, which ruled Jammu and Kashmir with one of the most corrupt governments in India.

Shah changed his name to Syed Salahuddin, fled to Pakistani-held Kashmir and became supreme commander of the Hezb-ul-Moujahedeen, the largest guerrilla army operating in Jammu and Kashmir. He also heads the United Jihad Council, a loose alliance of militant groups fighting Indian rule.

India’s government wants to put Salahuddin on trial as a terrorist. It has already imprisoned his former campaign aide, Malik, who also took up the gun after the 1987 elections and became leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.

Although Malik transformed that group into a nonviolent movement for Kashmiri independence, Indian police arrested him March 25 while he was addressing a news conference in Srinagar, the state’s winter capital. He is being held, without trial, under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act.