Sardar-Masood-KhanWhile describing the local bodies election held in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) as farcical and stage-managed, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that Indian rulers cannot get the validation of their illegal actions taken since August 2019 by holding such sham polls. Commenting on the self-proclaimed victory of the ruling BJP and Farooq Abdullah’s pro-India National Conference in the Districts Development Councils’ elections in occupied Kashmir, the state president said that these elections were held under the supervision of an occupation army which is engaged in massacring and ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri people amidst detention of hundreds of political leaders, thousands of political workers, civil society leaders, journalists and human rights activists. Sardar Masood Khan maintained that India has always engineered elections in occupied Jammu and Kashmir in order to ensure the victory of pro-India parties and the majority of the Kashmiri people have neither accepted these elections nor have ever regarded them as a substitute of the plebiscite. About the so-called Gupkar Alliance formed under the leadership of Farooq Abdullah in occupied Kashmir, the AJK president said that this alliance had neither enjoyed the support of the people of occupied Kashmir nor has it any authority to lead the Kashmiri people. “Gupkar Alliance has no legitimacy; no endorsement from Kashmiris. Its participation in polls merely mean a fresh lease of life for pro-India elements to safeguard their vested interests, at the expense of Kashmiris right to self-determination.” The motive behind the formation of this alliance is nothing except to once again give a new lease of life to those who have always compromised with the rulers of Delhi for their power at the cost of the dignity, independence and the national cohesion of the Kashmiri people. “These are farcical and stage-managed polls in IOJK. Genuine leadership is behind bars, gagged, tortured, disenfranchised. The cast cobbled tougher through these polls has been abetting occupiers for decades. The whole operation conducted with stealth and manipulation,” the President said Citing the latest report of the New York Times on these elections, Sardar Masood Khan said that the newspaper has reported that “hundreds of people, including separatists, political moderates, civil society advocates and journalists remain in jail after they were swept up last year. Accusations of torture by security forces were widespread.” In this the climate of fear and uncertainty, the B.J.P. has made a big push into the Kashmir Valley, the centre of the separatist struggle, unleashing 300,000 party workers and bringing Muslim politicians in Kashmir into its fold for the first time.