By Sheikh Mushtaq

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Kashmir's main separatist alliance Friday appealed to the people of the region to boycott India's general election, prompting authorities to place two separatist leaders under house arrest.

The decision by the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, which bands nearly a dozen political, social and separatist groups, comes after United Jihad Council (UJC) asked the separatist alliance to support their call to shun the poll.

UJC is a Pakistan-based amalgam of 13-militant groups fighting Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-majority state.

"Elections are no substitute for the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and for the resolution of the dispute," Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said in a statement.

India's general election began last week, but voting in the Kashmir valley has been split into three phases starting from April 30.

The staggered voting is to allow thousands of security forces to move around the troubled region.

Besides Congress and its main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the regional National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party are also contesting in the Himalayan region.

"Elections in the presence of 700,000 Indian troops is itself a dispute. I appeal to people to stay away from polls," Farooq said.

Hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani has already called for a boycott of the April-May election.

But another senior separatist leader, Sajjad Gani Lone, who walked out of Hurriyat in 2002, said this month that he would contest the poll and take his struggle to parliament in New Delhi.

Friday morning Hurriyat's Farooq and Geelani were placed under house arrest as they prepared to lead anti-poll rallies, police said.

A 20-year-old separatist revolt has killed tens of thousands of people in Kashmir, the cause of two of three wars between India and Pakistan, who claim the region in full but rule in parts.

Violence involving Indian troops and Muslim militants has declined significantly since the nuclear-armed neighbors launched a peace process in 2004. New Delhi paused that dialogue after the Mumbai attacks last year.

But people are still killed in daily shootouts in the region.

Two militants were killed in a fierce gun battle with security forces Friday morning near Sopore town, north of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, police said.

(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Alex Richardson)

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