Top Kashmir leader says India has silenced dissenting voices as region votes in final phase of polls

A key resistance leader in Indian-controlled Kashmir says the regional polls to choose a local government will not resolve the decades-old conflict over the disputed region. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who has spent most of the last five years under house detention, said the polls are being held as political voices contesting India’s sovereignty over the region remain silenced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government stripped the region of its long-held semi-autonomy in 2019. The region, divided between India and Pakistan, has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media gagged.