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NEW DELHI, Wednesday (AFP) India said the "acid test" of Pakistan's intention to end the infiltration of Islamic rebels into its zone of Kashmir would be the upcoming provincial elections there.

"The biggest acid test for Pakistan is the coming assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir," said India's new junior foreign minister Digvijay Singh.

"We have to see what is the role played by it. Islamabad's role will be very important," Singh told reporters shortly after taking his post.

Singh was shifted to the foreign ministry in a cabinet reshuffle on Monday in which Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh swapped portfolios with Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha.

Elections are due in Kashmir in October this year and India fears that militants from Pakistani-administered Kashmir may try to enter the Indian side to disrupt the process.

Hardline rebels have already said they would "sabotage" the vote and have warned of "grave consequences" for anyone showing up to vote.

But India has said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged to a US envoy that his country would permanently end infiltration in the divided Himalayan region.

India has ruled out a pullback of its hundreds of thousands of troops from the borders with Pakistan until the Kashmir election, due by October 14.

"Pakistan has to prove by its actions on the ground that it is determined to plug infiltration into India," Digvijay Singh said.

He said the real challenge for Indian foreign policy was to normalise relations with Pakistan.

"If a way can be found for peace after two world wars, India and Pakistan can also find a way towards peace," he said.

India is hoping an incident-free election in Kashmir would end criticism that it has not allowed residents of its only Muslim-majority state to choose their own leaders.

Separatists allege that past votes have been rigged to ensure the victory of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah's National Conference.

The party's leadership was recently transferred to the chief minister's son Omar Abdullah, who had held the post of junior foreign minister.

Meanwhile Pakistan-based Muslim militants pressed the main separatist alliance in disputed Kashmir to campaign against upcoming legislative assembly elections.

The Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC), a 15-member alliance of Pakistan-based militants, said in a statement separatist groups in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir should agitate against the vote due in October.

The MJC said the leadership of the separatist All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) should represent the sentiments of the Kashmiris by launching an anti-polls campaign.

"If the Hurriyat failed to do so... it will no more be a politically representative forum of the Kashmiris who will be justified in rejecting it and determining their own course (of action)," the MJC said.

The MJC issued the statement after a meeting here in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani zone of Kashmir. They said their decision was arrived at unanimously.

The alliance said the objective of the drawn out struggle in Kashmir was neither a "transfer of power nor achievement of internal autonomy."

"People of Kashmir want complete independence from India. They have sacrificed more than 90,000 lives and (the) honour of thousands of women to achieve this goal and not to bargain for power."

The alliance said those who supported the polls would be ignoring the sacrifices of those killed in the separatist struggle.

"Betrayal of the Kashmir cause will be considered an unpardonable crime and they will have to face exemplary punishment," the MJC said.

The alliance urged the people of Kashmir to boycott the "election drama with full courage and determination."

The militants asked a delegation of Muslims sent by the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Indian-administered Kashmir not to ask the Kashmiris to take part in the elections.

"Instead of doing so, the delegation members should console the oppressed Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat, who have lost everything at the hands of Hindu fanatics."

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