NEW DELHI: Nine police and poll officials were killed in India in two attacks, one in a region hit by a Maoist insurgency and the other in Kashmir, where many voters are boycotting a general election.

Eight police and election officials were killed when assailants — that police suspect were left-wing rebels — blew up a bus they were traveling on in Dumka, in the eastern state of Jharkhand, police spokesman Anurag Gupta said.

Five of the dead were police. Five others were wounded. Jharkhand forms part of a belt running down eastern India that is prone to attacks by rebels who target politicians and businesses they believe are colluding to ruin the livelihoods of native tribal groups.

In the second incident, one election official was killed and five people wounded in a gun attack in Kashmir, where many people stayed away from voting in a constituency that was hit by pre-poll violence.

“Militants fired at polling staff in South Kashmir’s Shopian district, killing one poll official and injuring five others, including two poll officials and three policemen,” South Kashmir police chief Vijay Kumar said.

Voting on Thursday was the sixth of 10 rounds in India’s five-week-election, with ballots cast in states including Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

These regions could hold the balance of power if Narendra Modi’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies fail to win an outright majority.

Constituents in Mumbai were among the 180 million eligible voters as were residents of the electorally crucial southern state of Tamil Nadu.

In the eastern state of Jharkhand, Maoist rebels who have called for a boycott of the elections, killed five policemen in a land mine explosion as they were returning from polling duty.

“We can confirm that five of our brave men have died in the attack,” head of Jharkhand police Rajeev Kumar said.

The deaths underscored the security challenges facing election organizers in India which went to the polls on April 7.

In all, constituencies in 12 states voted on Thursday including Assam, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.