Indian election attacks : 13 Killed by Maoist

FOR many Indian voters, casting their ballots Thursday was a gesture of defiance against militants, tribal guerrillas and Maoist rebels intent on disrupting the world's largest democratic exercise.

Among the regions taking part in the first phase of the country's month-long general elections were some that have suffered decades of unrest, from insurgency-wracked Kashmir to the tribal badlands of the northeast. India's sheer size makes organising elections an immense logistical challenge, but the scale of the task is made all the greater by the constant threat of violence. No sooner had voting begun Thursday than Maoist gunmen in the eastern state of Jarkhand used a landmine to ambush a bus carrying paramilitary personnel to a polling booth. Seven soldiers and two civilians died in the attack, police spokesman S.N. Pradhan told from Latehar district, 140 kilometres from the state capital Ranchi. In neighbouring Bihar state, two security personnel were shot dead and another wounded by the rebels in Gaya district, the official Press Trust of India news agency reported. And in Chattisgarh state, gunbattles were reported in Bijapur and Dantewada districts, part of a densely forested region that serves as the main base of the left-wing guerrillas. The Maoists, who say they are fighting for the rights of neglected tribal people and landless farmers, have been described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the biggest overall threat to India's security. In Muslim-majority Kashmir, where an insurgency against Indian rule has claimed 47,000 lives in the past 20 years, polling was clouded by a militant warning that anyone taking part would be branded a "traitor.'' Army troops, backed by tens of thousands of police and paramilitary troops, were deployed in the streets of the Kashmiri winter capital Jammu and outside polling booths in Rajouri and Poonch, two districts bordering Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. "Elections are always attractive targets for the militants. We are fully aware that they will try to disrupt the poll process,'' said Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Hardline separatist politicians in Kashmir have urged a boycott of the polls, arguing that participation amounts to recognition of India's sovereignty over the disputed region. The call was backed by a stark warning from the most powerful militant group active in Indian Kashmir, Hizbul Mujahedin. Anyone taking part "will be considered traitors who are selling out the blood of martyrs,'' said Syed Salahudin, the outfit's Pakistan-based supreme commander. Separatist sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, especially the overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmir valley, which last year witnessed some of the biggest anti-India protests for decades. But while many Kashmiri Muslims are staunchly opposed to Indian rule, their top priorities are bread-and-butter issues, like decent-paying jobs, health care and education. And these issues, rather than any new-found sense of Indian identity, have resulted in a shift in recent years towards electoral politics. State elections late last year witnessed an unprecedented 60 percent voter turnout - a figure the government in New Delhi was swift to hail as a "victory for democracy'' and a vote for national integration. In India's remote northeastern states, which have struggled for decades with a host of insurgencies run along tribal, ethnic and political lines, nearly 40,000 police and paramilitary troops were on duty for the first stage of voting. Assam and Manipur states saw several violent incidents in the election run-up with militants triggering explosions, sabotaging trains and ambushing security personnel in attacks that left 15 dead and 100 injured.