KL Report

SRINAGAR

In North Kashmir’s Dobgah village, where Muhammad Afzal Guroo was born, no one even walked past the polling station on Wednesday. There were no queues scaled outside the polling station.

Only media men and security personnel were seen going past the polling stations while scribes thronged the house of Muhammad Afzal Guroo to talk with the family members about the ongoing elections.

“Why should I vote and for what? I never cast my vote throughout my life. I am not an Indian and I thank my villagers by heart for staying away from the poll process,” the better half of executed Kashmiri youth Tabasum Guroo said.

Not a single vote was polled in the native village of Muhammad Afzal Guroo who was hanged in Tihar jail without meeting his family members on February 9, 2013.

“Afzal was like my son and where from I can muster my courage to cast vote. I can’t betray him,” a next-door neighbour of Guroo said adding that people here don’t want any roads, any jobs or any benefits. They only want Freedom.

The scene was altogether different in the native village of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front founder, Muhammad Maqbool Bhat who was also hanged in Tihar jail in 1984. All the four polling booths vide numbers 47, 48, 49 and 50 were abuzz with people and they all seem enthusiastic about the polling.

“If I don’t vote, wrong candidate will get elected. We vote to get our day-to-day problems addressed,” Fayaz Ahmed a youth from Threhgam said adding that his vote is for change this time.

The native village of Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani, Dooru Sopore stayed away from Parliament polls completely. As the adjoining villages voted to elect their candidates, there was no polling process in the village where Geelani was born and people were busy with their daily chorus.

Scores of youth were seen outside polling booths in Dooru raising pro-freedom slogans in a peaceful way. “We don’t vote and we will not vote. We support the boycott call of our leader (Syed Ali Geelani),” one of the youth said.

Poling staff waited for whole day for voters who kept giving them a miss throughout the day. At Government High School Dooru in polling booth number 67 not a single vote was polled out of total 781 votes while the situation was same at polling booth number 68 at Panchayat Ghar Dooru where nobody cast his vote out of total 866 votes. The native village of octogenarian leader did not vote in assembly polls in 2008 as well. (CNS)

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