SRINAGAR – Seeing scores of Scottish people lining to vote and choose for their own future, Kashmiris have revived their decades-old dreams of having a similar referendum on the future of the disputed Himalayan region.

"We hope India will also change its approach and realize the fact that people's rights can't be trampled upon," Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the head Muslim priest on the Indian side of Kashmir, told Reuters.

"It is encouraging that in a peaceful manner people will be deciding their future."

Kashmir is divided into two parts and ruled by India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars since the 1947 independence over the region.

Pakistan and the UN back the right of the Kashmir people for self-determination, an option opposed by New Delhi.

A two-decade insurgency in Kashmir, divided into two parts and ruled by India and Pakistan, has claimed 47,000 lives, according to official figures.

On Thursday, Scotland voted on whether to split away from the United Kingdom in a ballot.

Though Scots preferred to stay with the UK, Kashmiris praised Britain for allowing Scots to decide for their own future.

"India should learn lessons from UK and honor its commitment of granting right to self-determination to people of Kashmir," Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani said.

After decades of conflict, India has never carried out a promise made more than six decades ago to hold a plebiscite that would determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

It now considers the entire region of snow-capped mountains and fertile valleys an integral part of its territory and maintains a massive military presence in Jammu and Kashmir, its northernmost and only Muslim-majority state.