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Nineteen people, including 12 militants and four Indian soldiers, have been killed in the last 24 hours as election process began on Thursday in the India-controlled Kashmir, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI).
Five militants, claimed to be members of Lashkar-e-Toiba, an Islamic group active in Kashmir, were shot dead while two Indian security men were injured in a major gun battle in the border district of Kupwara Wednesday night, a police spokesman was quoted as saying.
Indian security troops killed another five militants in separate encounters in Poonch district of south Kashmir, he said,
Two foreign militants, allegedly from Pakistan, were killed on Wednesday in Baramulla district of north Kashmir, the spokesman added.
The ultras shot dead a girl, who left her police job recently, and wounded another one in an attack in Anantnag Wednesday night, he said.
The spokesman said that the militants killed a youth on suspicion that he was a police informer in Kupwara while the body of an unidentified person was recovered from a village in Anantnagon Thursday.
Meanwhile, the PTI reported, the election process in the India-controlled part of the insurgency-hit Kashmir valley began on Thursday with issuance of notification for the first of the planned four-phased polls.
Twenty-six of the 87-member assembly in the India-controlled Kashmir will go to polls in the first phase on September 16.
The second phase of polling is scheduled to take place on September 24 while the third and fourth phases will be held on October 1 and October 8 separately.
Over 5.6 million voters are expected to exercise their rights in the elections, which were described as "one of the most difficult" polls ever held in the country.
(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2002)
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