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| Panchayat polls: J&K police seek additional troops | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 26: Jammu and Kashmir police have requested the Centre for additional troops for a smooth conduct of local body and panchayat elections in the state in September and October.
Police sources said that the Centre could allow 240 companies of paramilitary forces that were sent for the security of Amarnath Yatra, which concluded on Sunday after more than 60 days, to stay in the state till the end of the grassroots elections.
The panchayat elections are held in the state after eight years.
The decision to hold local body and panchayat elections were taken during the last days of the tenure of former governor N.N. Vohra.
Vohra had announced in his Independence Day speech that elections to local body and panchayats will be held in September and October.
J&K police have started to identify areas that are vulnerable to attacks by militants and categories them as sensitive, less sensitive and hypersensitive.
Senior officials of the security forces are hopeful that the home ministry would allow the 24,000 CRPF men to stay in Kashmir till the end of the elections. That would prevent additional costs incurred in transporting the forces.
At least 16 panchs and sarpanchs were killed by suspected militants and nearly 20 others sustained bullet injuries after the last elections in 2011. The state will elect 4,400 sarpanchs and 29,000 panchs in the upcoming elections.
The elections are also interpreted in Kashmir as a prelude to the next assembly polls if no government is formed by the parties especially by the BJP with the help of Sajad Gani Lone of Peoples Conference and the PDP rebels.
The local body and panchayat polls will also be the first major political exercise in the state after the 2014 assembly elections and the 2016 separatist uprising triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani and two of his associates in south Kashmir's Kokernag on July 8, 2016.
In the by-elections for Srinagar in 2017 only seven per cent voters cast their votes. |
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