The Hizbul Mujahideen has warned people against taking part in the Jammu and Kashmir [Images] civic polls.

Posters with the warning were seen in several villages of Anantnag and Pulwama districts of south Kashmir on Wednesday, reports said.

• National Conference to contest civic polls

The panchayat and municipal elections are scheduled to take place on February 1 after 25 years.

Several outfits, including the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the J&K Liberation Front, Democratic Freedom Party and United Jehad Council, have also given a boycott call.

Meanwhile, the Hurriyat's moderate faction, led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, described the polls as a 'futile exercise' to put the Kashmir issue on the 'backburner'.

He, however, stopped short of giving a boycott call.

"Elections have never before and will never in future provide a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue," a Hurriyat spokesman said.

He said the Hurriyat believed that the Kashmir issue could be resolved only through meaningful talks between the three principal parties.

Although talks between India and Pakistan have already started, 'obstacles' are being created to the efforts being made by the Hurriyat to find an amicable, durable and honourable solution to the issue, the spokesman said.