Security gears up for violence in the last phase of polling
Over 145 million voters go to polls on Saturday, February 28, under a tight security cover bolstered by flag marches, alerts and sealing of borders, to elect 131 Lok Sabha members and the legislative assemblies of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
According to reports received from the ten states and the Union territory of Daman and Diu involved in the fourth and virtually last round of polling on Saturday, special security steps have been taken in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir and adjoining Himachal Pradesh, Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Purulia and Midnapore in West Bengal and Bombay in Maharashtra.
The army has been asked to stand by in Coimbatore, rocked by serial bomb blasts that left 60 people dead earlier this month. This is the first time polling is being held in Tamil Nadu with the army on hand to assist the civil authorities.
Three bombs went off in Bombay on Friday, killing four people and injuring at least 20. Flag marches were held in the city by the Border Security Force and various other forces and security was further tightened. The city sends six members to the Lok Sabha.
A "maximum alert" has been sounded in the Srinagar constituency following intelligence reports that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency had planned to disrupt the election.
Authorities in Srinagar said more than 320 companies of paramilitary forces and state police have been deployed to thwart the nefarious designs of the militants while some leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, which has given a poll boycott call, have been detained.
UNI
Elections '98
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