Only 3 per cent of the mainly Muslim inhabitants of Srinagar think Kashmir should become part of Pakistan, and 7 per cent prefer Indian rule, the poll said.
Kashmiris want independence: poll
Agencies
Published: August 13, 2007, 11:01
gulfnews.com
New Delhi: Nearly 90 per cent of people living in Indian Kashmir's summer capital want their troubled and divided state to become an independent country, according to a poll in an Indian newspaper on Monday.
India and Pakistan have fought and argued over the Himalayan region ever since partition in 1947, but 87 per cent of people questioned in Srinagar have no allegiance to either
side.
Only 3 per cent of the mainly Muslim inhabitants of the city think Kashmir should become part of Pakistan, and 7 per cent prefer Indian rule, the poll said.
But down in Jammu, the state's mainly Hindu winter capital in the plains to the south, 95 per cent think Kashmir should be part of India.
Both countries claim the region in full, and both have ruled out independence as an option. India controls around 45 per cent of the former princely state, Pakistan around a third and China the rest, a largely uninhabited slice of high-altitude desert.
Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies interviewed 226 people in Srinagar and 255 in Jammu for the poll, published in Monday's Indian Express.
People in 10 Indian and 10 Pakistani cities were also interviewed.
Indians were keener to keep control of the region than Pakistanis -- 67 per cent of urban Indians think it should be ruled from New Delhi, against 48 per cent of Pakistanis who
wanted Islamabad to take full control, according to the poll.
Another 47 per cent of Pakistanis said they supported independence for Kashmir.
The fate of Kashmir -- known for both its natural beauty and for its bloody recent past -- has been uncertain ever since its Hindu ruler hesitated in choosing whether to join the
region to India or the newly formed Pakistan in 1947.
Around 84 per cent of people in Srinagar want to see the return of Kashmiri Pandits, a Hindu community, large numbers of whom fled the region after being targeted by Islamist militants. Many live in refugee camps elsewhere in India.
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