ANANTNAG, 29 September — Nationalist Congress Party candidate Khaleda Mushtaq was seriously injured and four people including her father were killed in Kashmir yesterday when their vehicle ran over a landmine planted by militants, police said.
Three other contestants in Anantnag district, which goes to the polls on Tuesday in the third phase of a staggered elections in the state, also survived assassination attempts, police said yesterday.
“Khaleda Mushtaq was going to her constituency when their vehicle went over an IED (improvised explosive device),” a police official said.
The blast ripped apart the vehicle and left a crater on the road. The blast occurred near the town of Kulgam, 70 km south of Srinagar. Her father, Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, two supporters and a police guard died in the blast at 2:45 p.m. (0900 GMT).
Khaleda was taken to a hospital in Srinagar, where doctors said her condition was “serious but stable”.
A lesser-known militant group, Al-Arifeen, claimed responsibility for the attack and the police said the outfit was a front of the Lashkar-e-Taiba force.
Khaleda’s Devsar constituency adjoins the Noorabad seat of Kashmir’s only woman government minister Sakina Itoo, who has faced four assassination bids.
The motorcade of Abdul Majid Mir, who is from Kashmir’s ruling National Conference, was also attacked in Anantnag’s Shangus seat, the police said, adding that one of his supporters was injured.
Independent candidate Bhasir Asad Bhat survived a militant attack yesterday near Bijbehara town, 45 km south of Srinagar, when militants hurled a grenade at a pre-poll rally he was addressing. Three policemen and a civilian were injured in the blast.
Militants late Friday fired rockets at the house of a candidate from the ruling National Conference party, Syed Abdul Rashid, in a village near Kokernag, 70 km from Srinagar. “The militants also opened fire,” he said, adding one of the rockets hit the house causing some damage. However, there were no casualties.
Rashid, who is contesting from the Kokernag legislative seat, was at home when the gunmen struck.
Meanwhile, two militants and a policeman were killed in a gunbattle in the central district of Budgam during a patrol to look for militants.
In a similar encounter in the village in northern Kupwara district, two militants and a trooper were killed and another soldier injured, police said.
Authorities have provided tight security cover to all candidates contesting from various assembly segments in the Kashmir valley. Thousands of paramilitary troops have been deployed across the two districts of Pulwama and Anantnag to maintain law and order ahead of Tuesday’s voting.
A police spokesman in Srinagar said eight more militants were killed in separate gunbattles with Indian forces in Kupwara, Rajouri and Poonch districts in the past 24 hours.
Militants shot dead a Muslim villager in Doda district late Friday, and two Muslim shepherds died in the crossfire of a shootout between militants and Indian soldiers in Rajouri, the spokesman said.
The first two rounds of polls were held in relative peace on Sept. 16 and Sept. 24, despite rebel threats to disrupt the vote. The fourth and final round of balloting is set for Oct. 8.
A total of 579 people have died in Kashmir since New Delhi on Aug. 2 announced the dates of the election. The dead include 36 activists of parties contesting the polls, including two candidates, and 283 rebels.
Twenty-two of the victims belonged to National Conference, which is allied to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s multi-party administration in New Delhi.
The Defense Ministry in a statement yesterday said it was “continuing with intense efforts to sanitize the sensitive areas for the ongoing state elections.”
Vajpayee, meanwhile, yesterday described the first two phases of the Kashmir voting as “successful,” as his deputy, Lal Krishna Advani, in the northern city of Lucknow called the vote a “befitting reply to terrorism.”
“The world is surprised that the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections are being conducted in a fair manner,” Vajpayee said in New Delhi. “After the elections, a government will be installed in the state and if the present government in the state has to be replaced, it will be replaced,” he said.
