Geelani thanks ‘majority’ for boycotting polls

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 15

A day after Srinagar recorded a “historic” turnout of voting in the penultimate fourth round of Assembly elections, the separatists today came put with their usual taglines.

While the hardline Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Geelani thanked the “majority of the people” for boycotting elections, moderate Hurriyat leader today said that elections could not be a substitute for the right to self-determination.

The eight Assembly segments in Srinagar which went to the polls on December 14 witnessed a surge in electoral participation. At the end of polling on Sunday, the city registered 28.8 percent voter turnout, a record high in the last 25 years and up by 7 per cent in the 2008 elections, when the total turnout was 21.9%.

“In the disputed state of J&K, elections cannot be a substitute to the internationally accepted right to self-determination,” Mirwaiz said in a statement today after his release from house detention

He rejected the argument that participation of people in polls is their rejection of Kashmir’s “freedom struggle”.

“I thank the majority of the people for boycotting these elections despite force and coercion. Those people who consciously stayed away from electoral politics and boycotted these elections are our real asset,” Geelani said in a statement here today.

He also demanded the immediate release of separatist leaders, hundreds of Hurriyat activists and youth from detention, who were rounded up by the security agencies from different parts of the Kashmir valley during elections.