Indian Kashmir prepares for violent vote
Indian Kashmir prepares for violent vote
Terry Friel and Sheikh Mushtaq Reuters Srinagar, India
Islamic militants ambushed a Kashmiri minister's car on Sunday as the Indian state appeared set for a violent start to voting in elections that are likely to do little to ease tensions with Pakistan.
Two policemen died in the attack in the southern village of Boh, but Tourism Minister Sakina Itoo was not injured, officials said.
The second attempt on Itoo's life comes after Jammu and Kashmir state's law minister was shot dead on Wednesday and as violence mounts ahead of Monday's first round of voting.
Officials say they expect separatists to launch attacks to disrupt voting in the disputed region at the heart of a military stand-off that brought India and Pakistan close to war this year.
India's Border Security Force said it had captured nine members of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group overnight in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital, adding the group planned to disrupt the poll and attack political workers.
Four militants died and three polling booths were torched in separate incidents overnight near the frontier with Pakistan, which also saw small arms and mortar fire, officials said.
The army has intercepted a radio call ordering rebels to seize voter registration cards, possibly to help them enter polling booths for an attack, defense sources said.
More than 440 people have died since the poll was announced in early August, including almost two dozen party workers.
India wants a big turnout to bolster the legitimacy of its rule in the mainly Hindu nation's only Muslim-majority state.
Although analysts expect a better turnout than the 54 percent at the last poll in 1996, many voters are afraid.
"There is an atmosphere of terror. We will not vote," one man said in Surankote, near the border, where 12 people died in a militant raid on Wednesday. "Anything can happen on voting day."
Moderate separatist groups are not contesting the poll and have urged a boycott. They have called a strike on Monday that is likely to be observed, as much out of fear as support.
Pakistan, which India accuses of trying to sabotage the poll, has dismissed the election as a rigged farce.
Voting is being staggered over four days in September and October. The ruling National Conference party, also part of India's Hindu nationalist-led coalition government, is almost certain to be returned.
An agreed solution to the Kashmir dispute is critical to peace in South Asia, home to a fifth of the world's people.
Analysts say a strong voter turnout would boost India's position, a poor one Pakistan's. Regardless, they say the election is unlikely to ease tensions.
"The viewpoints of both India and Pakistan are so far apart that I don't think there can be any meeting place so far as the specific question of elections," former Pakistani ambassador to India Niaz A. Naik told Reuters in Islamabad.
"I think we are reaching a point where there can be no communication between the countries and it cannot possibly improve the atmosphere. The only thing it is going to do is to badly, adversely affect the atmosphere in South Asia."