Stringent security in place for last leg of Anantnag polls

Stringent security arrangements have been put in place in Shopian and Pulwama districts of Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag constituency for the last leg of the three-phase election in the Lok Sabha seat on Monday, officials said.

The elaborate security comes especially after Imamsahib area of Shopian witnessed massive clashes between youths and the security forces, following the killing of three militants in an encounter on Friday, the officials said.

All arrangements have been put in place for the smooth conduct of the polls in the twin districts of south Kashmir, as well as in the Ladakh constituency that also goes to polls on Monday, they said. "Adequate number of security personnel, along with their mobile bunkers, have been placed in the two districts."

The multi-layered security set-up was put in place for protection of polling booths, handling of law-and-order problems and thwarting the designs of "anti-national" elements to disrupt the polls, the officials said.

 

Pulwama and Shopian are spread over six assembly segments -- Tral, Pampore, Pulwama, Rajpora, Wachi and Shopian.

The Election Commission has set up 450 and 245 polling stations in Pulwama and Shopian, respectively. All of them are either hypersensitive or sensitive, the officials said.

They said these south Kashmir districts have a total of 522,530 electors -- 271,127 males, 250,735 females, 657 service electors and 11 transgenders.

The Lok Sabha constituency is spread over four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama with 16 assembly segments.

Polls in this constituency are being held in three phases due to security reasons. Anantnag district went to polls on April 23, while voting in Kulgam district took place on April 29.

The Election Commission has curtailed the polling duration for Anantnag constituency by two hours till 4 pm, following a request from the state police.

Peoples Democratic Party president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, Congress state president Ghulam Ahmad Mir, former Jammu and Kashmir High Court judge and National Conference candidate Hasnain Masood, BJP's Sofi Yousuf and Zaffar Ali of the People's Conference are among the 18 candidates in fray from the seat.