Pakistan's disputed Northern Areas go to polls

By Manzar Shigri

GILGIT, Pakistan (Reuters) - Voters in Pakistan's mountainous far north went to the polls on Thursday to elect an assembly for their district as part of an autonomy package that has angered old rival India.

Pakistan's Northern Areas have never officially been part of the country, instead they have been a part of the Pakistani-controlled portion of the disputed Kashmir region since shortly after Pakistan's independence in 1947.

In August, Pakistan announced a plan aimed at giving more of a say to the people of the strategic region, renamed Gilgit-Baltistan, with a first step being an election for an assembly.

People of the sparsely populated region turned out in force to cast their votes.

"It's our basic right to have our own assembly and our own representatives," said Mohammad Owais, a 40-year-old shopkeeper standing in a long queue at a polling station in Gilgit, the region's main town. "Today we have been given this right."

The country's two main political parties, several smaller ones and independent candidates are competing for seats in a 24-member assembly.

Bordering China on one side and the mainly Buddhist Indian region of Ladakh on the other, the area is known to mountaineers as home to some of the world's highest peaks.