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J&K polls meaningless: Kashmiri Pandits

'We are displaced, dispersed, territory-less and exiled people," said the Panun Kashmir movement's national co-ordinator, Shivdass Raina, "living a refugee life in our own country, deprived of the most important fundamental and human rights. Since the government does not care for our plight and never bothers to seek our viewpoint on the Kashmir issue, we have decided to boycott the polls."

Raina was speaking to reporters in Chandigarh on Wednesday.

B L Sadhu, president of the city's Kashmiri Sahayak Sabha, said, "If conducive conditions had been created by the government for our participation, we could have given it a thought."

The sabha, which represents about 5,000 displaced Kashmiris in Chandigarh and the nearby town of Mohali, gave a memorandum to visitng Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Arun Jaitley, asking for the Election Commission to update the voters' lists, rectify the usage of the term 'Tarak-e-skunat' [voluntary surrender of citizenship], and create conditions that would let the displaced Pandits also take part in the election.

PTI

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