Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front has rejected Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's call to separatist groups to participate in the forthcoming Assembly polls, saying, "No one in this strife-torn valley can even think about participating in Assembly elections".
"JKLF can never participate in elections. Participating in elections means betraying the cause for which more than 80,000 Kashmiris have laid down their lives," a statement issued by the party in Srinagar on Wednesday said.
"Right from its (JKLF's) inception, it has never believed in election politics," the separatist outfit headed by Mohammad Yasin Malik said.
JKLF founder, Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, had always boycotted the "farce exercise which India has been carrying out in Kashmir for the last fifty years," the statement added.
"Time and again JKLF has proved that it believes in liberation of Jammu and Kashmir," it said, adding that group has neither participated in elections "in this part of Kashmir nor in Pakistan-administered Kashmir".
The statement reiterated JKLF's resolve to continue the fight for the right to self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Bureau Report