SRINAGAR, India (AFP) — The head of the largest Muslim rebel group in Indian Kashmir warned Monday that only "traitors" would vote in upcoming elections, after a prominent separatist decided to contest the polls.
Those voting in the national ballot, which begins Thursday, "will be considered traitors who are selling out the blood of martyrs," said Syed Salahudin, the Pakistan-based supreme commander of Hizbul Mujahedeen.
Hizbul Mujahedeen is the most powerful militant group active in Indian Kashmir, where a two-decade-old insurgency has claimed 47,000 lives, according to official figures.
"People should not participate and let the sacrifices of the martyrs go to waste," Salahudin said in a statement.
Militant groups fighting Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir have backed up past election boycotts with death threats. However, the rebels did not interfere during last year's state elections.
Separatist groups have long argued that taking part in elections is tantamount to accepting Indian sovereignty over the scenic Himalayan region.
Although he did not mention him by name, Salahudin's stern warning came just two days after the surprise announcement by Muslim separatist Sajad Lone that he would contest elections in Baramulla, one of six parliamentary constituencies in northern Kashmir.
"Fighting elections is a change of strategy, not ideology," said Lone, 41, a vocal, high-profile opponent of Indian rule whose father was assassinated by gunmen in 2002.
"My aim is to enter parliament and represent Kashmir in India," Lone said.
The region's most vocal hardline separatist, Syed Ali Geelani, played down Lone's surprise decision.
"It is a non-issue for us," Geelani told a news conference in summer capital Srinagar, the urban hub of the insurgency.
"All those who contest elections in Kashmir only strengthen India's illegal hold over the region, even those who talk of getting the dispute resolved through these means," he said, urging a total boycott.
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