SRINAGAR, India: Suspected separatist militants shot dead a local leader from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party in disputed Kashmir ahead of the latest round of India’s marathon election, police said Sunday.
The killing in Anantnag district of India’s only Muslim-majority state is the latest in a string of attacks that have marred India’s staggered election which began last month.
The militants opened fire on Gul Mohammad Mir, 65, who headed a local unit of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), at his house in south Kashmir on Saturday night.
Police said a polling station to be used in the district on Monday was set ablaze in the nearby Shopian area.
Voter turnout in Indian Kashmir has barely crossed 10 percent in the previous rounds of the election and Anantnag is expected to suffer on Monday — the fifth round of voting in the six week long election which ends May 19. Results are to be released four days later.
Political killings are common in India’s bitterly-fought elections with party rivalries as well as regional politics boiling over.
Last week a bomb attack by far-left Maoist rebels in western Maharashtra state killed 15 police commandos and their driver.
The Maoists, who have traditionally boycotted elections as part of their campaign against the Indian state, killed two police constables in Chhattisgarh state last month.
They attacked a political convoy in the same state on April 11, killing five people including a BJP lawmaker.
Monday’s voting will be held in 51 constituencies across seven states, including Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state, which accounts for 80 of the 543 lawmakers decided in the election.
Amethi, the family borough of India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh, also votes Monday.
In the 2014 election, the BJP decimated Gandhi’s Congress party, clinching 282 seats. This election is predicted to be closer.
Militants kill politician ahead of new round of India vote
Militants kill politician ahead of new round of India vote
- This is the latest in a string of attacks that have marred India’s staggered election which began last month
- Political killings are common in India’s bitterly-fought elections
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
