As Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian and Pulwama districts vote in its third and final leg of polling in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency today, incidents of sporadic violence are being reported from these areas, beginning in the wee hours today.
#VotingRound5: Major violence in J&K’s Shopian and Pulwama, 38 election officials airlifted. Watch this GROUND REPORT…#AbkiBaarKiskiSarkar pic.twitter.com/qUJUNaSj8I
— Zee News (@ZeeNews) May 6, 2019
Due to security reasons, the polls in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency which is composed of 16 assembly segments, is being held in 3 phases.
As per reports, stone-pelters clashed with security forces and reportedly damaged and torched some vehicles carrying poll staffs. A Panchayat house and a school which was converted to a polling booth were also reportedly set ablaze in the violence that ensued.
However, there was no official confirmation on the poll staff suffering any injury. Following the incident, at least 38 election officials were lifted from Jenapora district in Shopian.
The security forces used tear gas shells to disperse the mob. Sources confirmed that a youth sustained a bullet injury in his leg during the clashes in Shopian.
Similarly, according to polling officials, mob damaged as many as 23 vehicles carrying poll staff to Tral town in Pulwama. Grenades were hurled at a polling station at Rohmoo village in Pulwama.
The Anantnag Parliamentary Constituency is spread over four districts comprising Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama. District Pulwama comprises four assembly segments of Tral, Pampore, Pulwama and Rajpora while as Shopian has Wachi and Shopian segments. While voting was held in Anantnag district on April 23, Kulgam went to polls on April 29 and Shopian and Pulwama are slated to see ballots cast today.
According to reports, the Election Commission has set up 450 and 245 polling stations in Pulwama and Shopian, respectively. The Election Commission has curtailed the polling duration for Anantnag constituency by two hours till 4 pm, following a request from the state police.
BJP district Vice President, Gul Mohammad Mir, was killed yesterday in Jammu and Kashmir’s Nowgam in South Kashmir. He was shot dead by terrorists at his home in Nowgam village. He sustained serious bullet injuries in the chest and abdomen and was declared brought dead to the hospital.
The terrorists’ attack on Mir came on a day former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti made a problematic appeal to the terrorists not to carry out any terror attacks ‘in the month of Ramzan’.
Mufti’s statement drew a lot of flak on the social media where people condemned the implications of her appeal of ‘no terror attacks during Ramzan’.
