SRINAGAR, 1 October — Though security forces have made elaborate arrangements to ensure a safe election and reduce voters’ fear, it is widely believed that the voter turnout will be poor in the third phase of polling in Kashmir today.

Some 1.81 million voters, including 30,000 migrant Hindus, are due to vote today in the violence-prone districts of Pulwama, Anantnag and Udhampur, and the relatively peaceful Kathua district.

The districts voting today — the first anniversary of an attack on the assembly in Srinagar that left dead 38 people — include areas where candidates have not dared to hold rallies for fear of militant attacks.

The spate of attacks on political activists and election officials over the past few days has increased concern among voters. The threat of militant strikes looms larger than ever and large-scale violence is feared.

Kashmir’s chief electoral officer Pramod Jain said that of the 2,045 polling stations today, half were considered “hyper-sensitive” or prone to violence.

“Adequate forces have been deployed, who are both visible and dominating,” Jain said.

“The idea is that the level of fear should go down. And the confidence should go up,” he told a news conference Srinagar.

At least 11 people died on the eve of the third round of voting, as militants targeted poll stations and officials.

Militants overnight torched a junior-grade school that was to function as a polling station in Hal village near Kokernag in Anantnag district.

In the same area, BSF troops yesterday found a landmine planted inside another school earmarked as a polling station and defused it, a spokesman for the paramilitary force said.

“Militants probably planted it with an aim to detonate it during the time of elections on Tuesday,” the spokesman said.

Another landmine was defused by the BSF in the village of Larimarg in Anantnag district just meters away from a polling station.

“The timely detections have averted two major tragedies,” the spokesman said.

Three poll officials and a policeman were injured in another attack on a voting facility in Pampore area of Pulwama overnight.

Two Indian troopers died when a landmine they were defusing exploded in the village of Watlab Gat, near Sopore town, 50 km north Srinagar, police said.

Militants also fired a rocket overnight at a camp of the Border Security Force (BSF) near the township of Tral, 40 km south of Srinagar, injuring a BSF soldier, police said.

At the highway township of Awantipora, two civilians were injured when militants hurled a hand grenade at a security patrol but it missed and exploded among pedestrians, the police said.

Police said two suspected militants were killed by Indian soldiers overnight when they crossed the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

The infiltration was reported from the Machil sector of northern Kupwara district, which went to polls Sept. 16 in the first phase of voting for the state assembly.

In Doda district, which votes on Oct. 8, troops killed three militants while cordoning off a hideout in the village of Kiyar, 200 km northeast of Jammu.

“As the forces neared the spot they came under fire and in retaliation three militants were killed,” a police spokesman said.

He said those killed were all Pakistanis and that “large quantities” of weapons and explosives were seized.

Another militant and an Indian soldier were killed in separate clashes in southwestern Kashmir, police said.

One militant was shot dead in Kupwara, while the militants killed a Muslim civilian in Doda district. — Syed Faisal Ali