Shehla Rashid cries for Kashmir, quits electoral politics

Former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Shehla Rashid on Wednesday announced her decision to quit electoral politics in Kashmir, claiming that the upcoming local elections were a “sham exercise” being held to “install puppet leaders” in the state.

Rashid is a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement, which was founded by Kashmiri bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal earlier this year. She said the announcement of the Block Development Council elections in Jammu and Kashmir had compelled her to take this decision to quit the “electoral mainstream”.

“Even as the lockdown on millions of citizens continues for over two months now, even as the Indian government continues to abduct children in Kashmir, and even as people are deprived of the means to call an ambulance and other emergency services, the Centre is soon going to hold elections to the Block Development Councils, in an attempt to showcase ‘normalcy’ to the outside world,” she wrote.