India releases Kashmir leader on bail for contesting election

A jailed member of parliament from Indian-administered Kashmir was granted interim bail on Tuesday to allow him to campaign for local elections in the disputed region, his lawyer said.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between rivals India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries claim the Himalayan territory in full.

Indian-controlled Kashmir is gearing up for the first local assembly elections in a decade, with voting in the three-phased poll beginning on September 18.

Sheikh Abdul "Engineer" Rashid, 57, who was arrested on terrorism funding accusations, was elected as a national lawmaker in June but has been held in a high-security prison in Delhi.

"The court has granted Engineer Rashid interim bail so that he can campaign for his party in the assembly election," his lawyer Ubaid Shams told AFP.

The Himalayan territory has been without an elected government since 2019, when its partial autonomy was cancelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and it was brought under New Delhi's direct rule.

About 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in the region, battling a 35-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels since 1989.

Rashid was released in July to be sworn in to parliament in June but was sent back to jail the same day.

He must now surrender himself again on October 2, the day after voting ends.

A total of 8.7 million people will be eligible to vote for the region's assembly, with results expected on October 8.

Rashid's Awami Itihad Party has emerged as a new electoral force in Kashmir.

Modi is expected to address rallies for his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the southern Jammu areas of the territory, which has a sizeable Hindu population, before the vote.