Seven persons, including a CRPF trooper and an old woman, were killed on Saturday when militants opened fire at a polling booth in Manipur’s Chandel district. The CRPF personnel retaliated and shot dead the militants’ commander.
The state, however, recorded 82 per cent voter turnout with people exercising their franchise as late as 8 pm in some areas.
The violence took place at Dampi polling station, in Sugnu Assembly constituency of Chandel district, when heavily armed militants, allegedly NSCN (I-M) rebels, tried to capture a polling booth and fired at CRPF personnel present there. The CRPF trooper who died was shot from close range. Security sources told this newspaper that there was more than one militant and that they were armed with sophisticated weapons. Deputy election commissioner Alok Shukla, however, said in New Delhi that one person, posing as a voter, entered the polling station and started firing, killing a CRPF man, three polling persons and a voter on the spot. An injured voter later succumbed in hospital.
The state, as a pilot project, photographed everyone who voted. It also provided postal voting facilities for the militants detained in special camps.