Security forces are bracing for a possibly violent fortnight as North Kashmir goes to polls on April 30 and May 7. While polls in Jammu region passed off peacefully, recent radio intercepts between militants indicate that their handlers across the line of Control (loC) have asked them to step up violence as Srinagar goes to polls on April 30, while equally sensitive Baramulla will have polls on May 7.
Jammu and Kashmir are undergoing a five-phase poll with Jammu and Udhampur witnessing incident-free polls on April 10 and 17 respectively, the real test of army, central para-military and State forces preparedness will be in North Kashmir, comprising Srinagar and Baramulla constituencies.However, radio intercepts in the past few days between militants and their ISI handlers across the loC have sent alarm bells ringing in security establishment as these intercepts indicated a possible bid by militants to go all out in remaining phases of poll, sources said here on Sunday.
Coupled with this factor, intercepts also indicated that militants would now try to infiltrate into Baramulla in the coming days as it closer to loC and weather has improved considerably.Earlier, all these ingress routes were blocked due to unseasonal snowfall, but now situation on ground was conducive for infiltration bids and the Army had redrawn its strategy to deny terrorists a foot hold in these sensitive regions, officials said.
In fact, North Kashmir saw at least two major encounters in the last one week with three Army personnel, including a Major, dying in firefight with militants and security forces do not rule out an increase in such incidents in the run up to the polls in Srinagar and Baramulla.Major Mukund Varadarajan alongwith a soldier were killed during an encounter on Friday last in Shopian area which is about 50 kms from Srinagar. Shopian is part of Anantnag Parliamentary constituency and the encounter took place a day after militants carried out an attack on a polling party escorted by police and CRPF in the district at the end of the voting on Thursday. One polling officer was killed while five others including three security personnel were injured in the incident.
In this backdrop, 93 per cent of electoral booths in Srinagar were declared hypersensitive while 70 per cent in Baramulla and 83 per cent in Anantnag, officials said adding North Kashmir has nearly 4,700 booths.Multiple strikes by militants targeting sarpanches and poll officials have kept the entire security grid on its tenterhooks ahead of the polling day in Srinagar. Selective killing of sarpanch on April 17 in Awantipora and later in Tral area of Pulwama on April 21 created panic in the area and forced people to stay indoors during the polling day on April 24 in Anantnag parliamentary constituency.
Meanwhile, security grid was strengthened and the security apparatus handling poll duties sanitised afresh following reports of fresh strikes in the valley in the coming days. On Sunday too, two explosions were reported in Kashmir including near election rally of Union Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah.The security forces have been maintaining tight vigil on the movement of the suspected people and trouble makers in down town areas. Paramilitary forces were deployed in large numbers to address concerns raised by the polling staff following attack on the polling staff in Shopian on April 24 in which one school teacher, Zia-Ul Haq Wani was killed and security personnel were injured.
“The main city centres and prominent places around Srinagar are being tightly guarded to prevent any untoward incident,” a senior police officer in-charge of security duties said adding a general alert was sounded and special ‘naka (check)’ points set up to regulate the movement of commuters and wherever necessary frisking and general checking was also going on to instill confidence among the common people.