Danish Nabi
Trehgam (Kupwara) : Troopers resorted to baton charge against the people holding pro-freedom and anti-election demonstration in the third phase of elections in Trehgam constituency on Sunday.
A few hundred demonstrators, most of them women, in the home town of legendary pro-independence leader Maqbool Bhat, were beaten to pulp when they marched in a procession towards a polling station, shouting anti-India and anti-election slogans.
The troops cornered the protestors, including a 70-year old lady, and snatched banners they were carrying. In response to police action the demonstrators pelted stones, triggering clashes.
The protestors were booed people who were voting inside the polling booth, telling them the “area had given great sacrifices for the Kashmir cause and voting would negate those sacrifices.”
“Troopers have killed several men in the village including Maqbool Bhat who was among the first martyrs of Kashmir. We won’t waste their sacrifices by casting votes,” said Shamshada, a protestor.
“We want Azadi and we will fight for it till our last breath. Voting will do us no good,” said another protestor Khalida.
The protestors said they had assembled so that “they would see the people who rejected the election boycott call given by Coordination Committee.”
“We support the call given by CC and we would not cast our vote come what may. We have gathered here to see the people who come out to vote ignoring the sacrifices that Kashmiris have made all these years,” said Abdul Hameed, a resident.
“All these years we have seen what Indian government is all about but every Kashmiri should understand that by casting the vote they are playing into the hands of India,” he added.
The demonstration immediately showed its effect: the line of voters disappeared and the polling booth got empty.
But a number of people voted with a refrain that elections and freedom were separate.
An elderly person, Kaiser Malik, waiting in a line for his turn to vote, said, “I have been casting vote since I became eligible for voting. It is necessary to elect the representative who would work for our development. But this does not mean we don’t want Azadi.”
The voters said they were voting to defeat the legislator who ignored them.
“We vote because we don’t want the same people to win again. They have ignored us all these years,” said a lady voter, Sara who had come to cast her vote after the police and paramilitary forces had chased the anti-election protestors away.
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