JAMMU, 26 September — Five security men and nine suspected militants were among at least 19 people killed in Indian Kashmir hours after voting closed in the second stage of assembly elections in the state, police said yesterday.

Indian and Pakistani troops also exchanged artillery and small arms fire overnight along the Line of Control separating the two armies in Kashmir, and on the high altitude Siachen glacier in the far north. No casualties were reported.

Army troops cordoned off an area in the village of Wagoora in the northern district of Baramulla late Tuesday after a tip-off that militants were present, police said.

The holed-up militants opened fire, engaging the troops in a seven-hour battle that left four soldiers and the two militants dead and five other soldiers and a civilian injured.

At Kanchan village, also in Baramulla, along the Line of Control, Indian troops shot dead four militants late Tuesday, a police spokesman said. He said they were killed after they had crossed over the border from Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Three AK-47 rifles and 21 hand grenades were recovered near the encounter site.

A member of India’s Border Security Force (BSF) was killed and eight others injured in the southern Rajouri district when militants ambushed their patrol overnight, a police spokesman said.

In Srinagar, suspected militants opened fire at two policemen from close range killing one and injuring another.

Police said suspected militants shot dead four Muslims on the charges of working for the Indian security forces.

The killings took place in the Handwara, Bandipora and Kupwara townships of north Kashmir, they said.

Three more militants were killed in two separate encounters elsewhere.

The battles came hours after polls closed in three Kashmir districts in the second round of voting for the Indian state’s assembly. Only 11 percent of voters turned out in Srinagar, the Muslim-majority summer capital that is at the center of the 13-year insurgency against Indian rule, although majorities voted in adjacent Budgam district and the Hindu-dominated southern region of Jammu.

Meanwhile, security forces were seen moving in large convoys for redeployment in the southern part of the state ahead of the third phase of elections scheduled for Oct. 1. The fourth and final round will be held on Oct. 8.

The state’s Director General of police A.K. Suri held a meeting in Jammu with the region’s senior police officials to review security arrangements for the next round of voting.

In the third phase, voting will be held in Ananatnag and Pulwama in Kashmir Valley and Udhampur and Kathua districts in Jammu region of the Himalayan state.

About 1.69 million voters will decide the fate of 227 candidates contesting for the 27 seats at stake. Campaigning is lackluster following threats from militants.

In the southern Doda district, which goes to polls on Oct. 8, militants detonated a landmine near a vehicle of a ruling National Conference candidate late Tuesday, police said. No one was injured in the explosion.

Indian security forces stepped up security at Hindu temples in Kashmir after the attack on the temple in faraway Gujarat.