- (AFP) -- India was preparing its security forces for
potentially bloody elections the next day in Kashmir, where another state
minister was attacked by suspected Islamic rebels.
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- The convoy of Tourism Minister Sakina Itoo, a candidate
in the polls, ran over a landmine Sunday in the southern district of Anantnag,
and gunmen then fired, killing a police officer and injuring another.
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- Itoo escaped unhurt in the second attempt on her life
in less than a week. Suspected rebels had attacked her home Thursday but
she was away.
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- In Rajouri district, one of five that heads to the polls
Monday, troops shot dead three rebels "who were going to disrupt polling,"
a defense ministry spokesman said.
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- He said the rebels were from Pakistan, which Indian Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has accused of training rebels to cross into
Indian Kashmir "to kill election candidates and intimidate voters."
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- The nuclear-armed arch-rivals are locked in a 10-month
military standoff that has sent one million troops to their common borders.
India has demanded Pakistan end support for rebels before easing the build-up.
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- Three more rebels were killed Sunday by Indian forces
in the southeastern district of Doda, which heads to the polls in the last
of four rounds of voting October 8.
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- Some 1.49 million people are eligible to vote Monday
in five districts, all of them on the de facto border with Pakistan.
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- Rebels have killed at least 24 political activists, including
the state's law minister, since the dates for the four-phase poll were
announced on August 2.
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- "I cannot assure you 100 percent incident-free elections,"
Kashmir's police chief Ashok Kumar Suri said.
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- All major separatist groups are staying away from the
polls, saying that India must first show a willingness to settle the half-century
dispute over Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed
in full by both.
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- Rebel groups have said they would kill anyone taking
part in the vote.
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- India does not release figures on how many troops it
stations in Kashmir, but officials made clear they were not taking the
task lightly.
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- "We are ready for battle," P.J. Sebstian, deputy
inspector general of India's paramilitary Border Security Force, told AFP.
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- He said that in Poonch and Rajouri districts 200 companies
of paramilitary forces were on duty. Each company has at least 100 men.
The army and police will be also out in force.
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- In New Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh
pledged Sunday to voters "that the security forces are there in great
numbers and in high alert to protect you while you vote."
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- Officials said Sunday they arrested nine members of a
pan-Islamic militant group overnight that was planning to disrupt the polls.
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- The nine members of Jaish-e-Mohammad, including a senior
commander, were "planning to carry out a series of grenade and bomb
attacks," Rajinder Bhullar, a senior officer of India's Border Security
Force, told reporters in the summer capital Srinagar, where the arrests
were made.
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- "Political activists and workers were also their
main target in order to disrupt poll process."
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- Security is expected to be especially tight Monday in
the northern district of Kupwara, where state law minister Mushtaq Ahmed
Lone was assassinated Wednesday and another candidate, independent Sheikh
Abdul Rahman, was killed on September 6.
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