Over a million registered voters will decide the fate of 123 candidates in the fray for the first phase of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.
Thousands of armed personnel from the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the Central Reserve Police Force have been deployed to ensure incident-free elections in the 15 constituencies that go to polls. There will be three-tier security around the polling stations. In the first phase, two districts from the Kashmir Valley, Bandipore and Ganderbal, two from the Ladakh region, Kargil and Leh, and three from the Jammu region, Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar, will be voting.
The J&K Police have sounded a security alert for the Bandipore and Ganderbal districts. “We have sanitised the constituencies that go to vote on Tuesday and we are sure that we will have a smooth and fair election,” Inspector-General of Police, Kashmir, Abdul Gani Mir told
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
According to the police, 140 teams of police and paramilitary have been deployed in the two districts in the Kashmir region.
Security checks have been intensified across the Valley and metal barricades have been installed on all major roads leading to Bandipore and Ganderbal. Night patrolling has been started by the Army around all polling stations.
Of the 263 polling stations in north Kashmir’s Bandipore district, 119 have been demarcated by the security forces as hypersensitive and 122 as sensitive. In the Ganderbal constituency, among the 208 polling stations, 146 have been categorised as hypersensitive while 62 are sensitive. According to the police, every polling station will be guarded by 15 armed personnel.
ADVERTISEMENT