28-Mar-2024  Srinagar booked.net

PoliticsKashmir

Sajad Lone Demands Probe On ‘Rigged’ Kashmir Elections Of 1987

"Since India is investigating decade old cases Like Yasin Malik’s so the rigged elections must be probed "

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Srinagar: Citing Yasin Malik’s trial, Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Gani Lone on Saturday demanded a free and fair probe in the 1987 elections.

Lone alleged that New Delhi is covering up the ‘rigging’ of the 1987 elections, which, he said, was the main cause of all ‘killings’ in Kashmir.

The development comes a day after the incarcerated chief of Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front Yasin Malik said that he was tortured and kept in a detention centre after being picked up from an election counting center in 1987 in his letter.

“Was Yasin Malik born with a gun in hand or did the situation compelled him to do so? I want to ask the Government of India why they want to cover up the rigging of the election in 1987. Why do they want to shield the National Conference? The youngsters who protested against the denial of democracy in 1987 are either in graves or jails” Lone said.

He asked why New Delhi is not holding a probe in 1987 “electoral fraud” when its agencies like NIA are investigating decades-old minor cases in Kashmir.

In his letter-cum-will, Malik, who is lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar jail, has written that they had supported Muslim United Front but the authorities declared the winners as losers and losers as winners.

“I was apprehended and arrested from the vote counting station.  I was remanded to the RED-16 interrogation centre where I faced torture, unhygienic meals and contaminated stale water due to which my blood got infected,” Malik wrote in his letter.

“Subsequently I was shifted to the Police Hospital where one of my heart valves got affected. Hundreds of members of our organization including myself were detained under the Public Safety Act. I landed up spending the entire year of 1987 in jail,” Malik further writes,

Lone said his party doesn’t agree with Malik’s ideology but he deserves a fair trial.

Lone was talking about the allegation of rampant poll rigging in 1987. The allegations were leveled against National Conference and Indian National Congress which had tied a pre-poll alliance and as the results were declared, Dr Farooq Abdullah formed government with Congress.

(KNO)