DODA, 8 October — The stage is set for the fourth and final round of polling in Kashmir today amid fears of large-scale violence. Some 80,000 members of the security forces have been deployed in the insurgency-hit Doda district, police said, as they braced for a do-or-die bid by militants to disrupt voting in the area.

Doda district, inhospitable, mountainous and dotted with caves which police say are used as hideouts by militants, is the final district in Kashmir to go to the polls for the state assembly. Other districts have voted in three earlier violence-wracked rounds, the third in particular being marked by bloodshed.

Given Doda’s inaccessibility and difficult terrain, all election materials, including voting machines, poll officers and security personnel, are being helicoptered in, officials said.

In Srinagar, chief election officer Pramod Jain said some 10,000 ponies had also been pressed into service to transport poll officers and voting material to far-flung voting stations.

All polling stations in Doda will be provided with radio sets to allow staff to stay in touch with other election officials, Jain said.

Some 388,519 people are eligible to vote in the six constituencies of Doda, while 72,000 people are registered as voters in Lolab district in the north, where voting was postponed after ruling National Conference candidate and state Law Minister Mushtaq Lone was killed on Sept. 11.

Despite the extreme state of alert, militants detonated a bomb in Bangra, some four kilometers south of Doda town, yesterday afternoon killing a policeman and injuring two others.

"We know that many of the militants have started moving toward this area in the last 48 hours. Our inputs show that all the militants have been activated to wreak violence," said Doda police superintendent Saji Mohan.

Suspected militants shot at election officials on the way to a polling station in Doda. The officials were escorted by troops and paramilitary men. "One soldier is injured. Nobody has been killed but firing is still going on," a police official said.

The police are taking no chances and have designated 361 of the 407 polling stations as being "sensitive" or "super-sensitive" due to the frequency of militant attacks.

An army officer posted in Doda said that in the past week the number of militants entering the district had increased noticeably. "Nearly every day there are two to three encounters (between militants and security forces) taking place," he added.

The final round vote comes amid heightening tension between India and Pakistan, which New Delhi accuses of sponsoring militants to disrupt polling in the state both countries claim as their own. Islamabad says the claim is "preposterous" but has dismissed the ballot as a "sham."

Four Indian Army soldiers were killed and seven others injured overnight in an exchange of heavy artillery and mortar fire along the de facto border between India and Pakistan in divided Kashmir, police said yesterday.

The exchanges took place in northern Uri sector of Indian Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Srinagar ground to a halt yesterday, going on strike on the eve of the last round of a bloody state election over anti-Islam remarks by a US preacher.

Shops, businesses and schools were closed in Srinagar during the strike called by the Kashmir Traders Federation and supported by religious and social groups.

The protest was sparked by a newspaper report quoting Reverend Jerry Falwell’s comments to the American network CBS.

The All-Party Hurriyat Conference, Kashmir’s main pro-independence alliance, described the remarks in as a "war against humanity".