Eye on turnout, Govt asks J-K to beef up security

IN VIEW of the increasing incidents of poll violence in J-K, the Centre, fearing a decline in voter turnout, today asked the state governmen...

IN VIEW of the increasing incidents of poll violence in J-K, the Centre, fearing a decline in voter turnout, today asked the state government to further strengthen the security and local intelligence network.

In the next three phases of Lok Sabha polls 8212; the second being tomorrow 8212; more than 20,000 security personnel will be on duty on polling day. 8216;8216;Ensuring foolproof security is proving to be a difficult task since most of the incidents have not involved hard-core militants. These have mainly been grenade attacks, probably involving locals, who may have been given money to carry them out,8217;8217; disclosed a senior intelligence official.

Even today8217;s attack on PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti was along the same lines, where the grenade seemed to have been hurled from a local house. Sources said hard-core militants themselves appeared to be lying low with security personnel maintaining a strict vigil. 8216;8216;But to prevent these kinds of grenade attacks, the local intelligence, too, has to be very strong,8217;8217; the official added.

Sources said the government was keen to maintain the more-than-modest level of voter turnout for the remaining three phases of elections. 8216;8216;In the first phase, the voter turnout was reasonably good even in terrorist-infested areas like Uri 58 per cent, Karna 41 per cent, Kupwara 35 per cent, Lolab 46 per cent, Handwara 39 per cent, Gurez 55 per cent, Bandipora 38 per cent and Pulwama 25 per cent,8217;8217; an official said.

The turnout, so far, had been much better than in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls but worse than the 2002 Assembly polls. 8216;8216;That is understandable. Then the people were electing their own state government. The level of enthusiasm is bound to be higher. But even this time, the attendance at political rallies and meetings has been quite high,8217;8217; he added. So the government wanted to maintain the good voter turnout.

With talks with the Hurriyat Conference on, and Kashmir being the focus of international attention, the government was keen to foil terrorist attempts to disrupt polls and conduct smooth elections in the state.

There have been 25 incidents of poll-related violence so far, with 17 killed. These included attacks on political rallies, candidates during campaigning, explosions at the PDP rally in Uri, attack on Congress rally in Banihal, two attempts on the life of Farooq Abdullah, one on Omar Abdullah, on CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed besides attack on Congress headquarters in Srinagar, and today8217;s attack on Mehbooba.