J&K election: Uri militants don't faze voters, with long lines at polling booths

Mohra: Defying a harsh winter and the fear of recent deadly terror attack, voters in Kashmir’s border town of Uri, located 95 km from capital city Srinagar, queued up in long, winding lines to cast their votes on Tuesday morning. The Uri assembly segment, which saw a voter turnout of 37 percent till noon, shares a long Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and will determine the fate of Kashmir’s health education minister and senior Congress leader, Taj Mohi-ud-Din. Juts five hundred meters from the site of the Fidayeen attack on Friday morning in Kandrvan village of Mohra in which 17 people including six militants from Pakistan were killed, residents walked for as long as two kilometres to cast their vote soon after the polling booths were declared open. Ghulam Mohammad Najar, a resident of Mohra village, who witnessed Friday’s attacks from his house, crossed a small wooden bridge which connects the Gingal village with Mohra area, to cast his vote. “The anti-India sentiment has never worked in Uri. Call it our strategic location or the large Army presence which is responsible for this, we have always voted. But this time, we have voted for change,” Najar said while waiting for his turn to vote outside a polling station on a plateau surrounded by forests in Mohra. [caption id=“attachment_1841239” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sameer Yasir/Firstpost[/caption] Sultan Mohammad Thakur, 65, a resident of Mohra, said Friday’s attack did not deter him or his family from voting, but it has left a deep scar on the minds of residents of an otherwise relatively peaceful area of Kashmir. “The attacks can’t deter us from voting. It created an atmosphere of fear but that doesn’t mean we should not vote. To vote is important and that too when you know that your area is underdeveloped,” Thakur told Firstpost, while walking down a narrow path that would take him to the polling station located a kilometre away from his house in Kandrvan village. The militants had taken advantage of foggy weather, and after dividing in two groups attacked the artillery unit of the 31 field regiment of Uri Brigade, part of the 19 Infantry division based in Baramulla that houses the Bofors guns which were used in the early nineties to counter cross border shelling. The third phase of polling in 16 assembly segments, involving a total of 1369102 voters, including 19575 migrant Kashmiri Pandit voters, witnessed over 27 percent voter turnout till noon and it is expected to rise as the sun comes out. There are a number of important candidates in the fray including chief minister Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s finance minister, Abdul Rahim Rather and Taj. The Gulmarg assembly segment saw the highest turnout of over 38 percent while Sopore, the hometown of pro-Pakistan Hurriuyat leader Syed Ali Geelani, saw the lowest turnout. In other districts of Kashmir long queues of enthusiastic voters were also witnessed, completely ignoring the separatist calls to stay away from the poll process. However, there were reports of clashes between anti-election protesters and forces in Palhalan village, a Jama’at-i-Islami stronghold which has traditionally stayed away from elections. Voter turnout was also low in the Tral assembly segment where the BJP has filed a local Sikh and the party is banking on 1445 Pandit voters to score its first victory. The 16 constituencies going to polls today fall in three districts of Kashmir on which 137 candidates are contesting. Massive security deployment has been made to prevent any militant attack and stone pelting with 420 companies of CRPF battalions deployed along with the Army.