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J&K election a fraud on the people: Panun Kashmir

Panun Kashmir president Moti Kaul on Monday attacked the Jammu and Kashmir assembly election as a 'fraud on the people'.

He said this while addressing the media in New Delhi, after meeting various politicians and the President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam.

"President Kalam said that our children must have suffered greatly and promised he would apprise the prime minister about our plight," Kaul said.

He claimed that the polls would serve no purpose since a majority of the Kashmiris was boycotting them, and the voters' list in the state was still incomplete.

"The [central] government does not have the decency to call us for [electoral] discussions," he said, adding, "political parties have been using us as commodities during the last 13 years."

He said their delegation also met the Kashmir Committee, including its chairman Ram Jethmalani, and the Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.

In its meeting with Gandhi, the delegation charged the Congress with 'neglecting the Kashmiri Pandits', holding the party responsible for the community's 'sorry plight'. Gandhi gave the assurance of keeping the Kashmiri Pandits on the party's 'agenda', he said.

He described the meeting with the Kashmir Committee as constructive, after one of its members, Dileep Padgaonkar, admitted that the Kashmiri Pandits had a major problem.

Panun Kashmir convenor Dr Agnishekhar said the J&K polls had no relevance for his community members 'because our basic right to life has been taken away'.

"Our exodus from the state should be addressed, otherwise there is no guarantee that what we have suffered will not be repeated," he said.

Minister of State for Home Affairs I D Swami had 'callously' told the Pandits that the process for the polls in the state had been set in motion, and it was left to them [Pandits] to participate in it, he said.

Launching an attack on the Chief Election Commissioner James Michael Lyngdoh, he said, "The CEC is trying to hoodwink the nation by stating that an electoral mechanism had been put up for us." He added the CEC refused to meet them.

He said that there was no point for the Pandits to exercise their franchise when 'they are not sure whether the candidate was an ISI agent or somebody else'.

He however, emphasised that the organisation's boycott should not be linked with that of the Hurriyat, 'since they [Pandits] are hardcore Indians'.

Jammu and Kashmir Elections 2002: The complete coverage

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