Security personnel carrying automatic weapons guarded polling centres across Assam on Monday as voting began for the second and final phase of elections.
Updated at 11 am
GUWAHATI: One person was killed and a Central Reserve Police Force jawan was kidnapped by insurgents on Monday in Kokrajhar and Karbi Anglong districts of Assam as the state went to the polls on Monday.
The head teacher of Jainar High School in Singbargaon in Kokrajhar district was killed early in the morning, reports reaching here said.
CRPF head constable Muskanda was abducted by the Karbi Longri Northcachar Liberation Front, which gave a poll boycott call, from the house of a villager early in the morning in Kabri Anglong, officials said.
Muskanda had gone to the house along with polling personnel from nearby Langparpang polling station.
Stating the situation there was under control, officials said voting was on in the district despite the poll boycott call.
The first phase of assembly elections in the state on April 3 passed off peacefully without any incident.
Security personnel carrying automatic weapons guarded polling centres across the as voting began for the second and final phase of elections.
Assam, in India's isolated northeast, kicked off a month-long election process in five states in the south and east on April 3.
Thousands of people in colourful ethnic dress, carrying umbrellas, braved heavy rain as they waited in long queues at voting centers, watched by armed police and paramilitary personnel.
“Our troops are on high alert,” Deepak Pathak, a top police official said.
“Voting began peacefully without reports of violence.”
Monday's voting will conclude elections in Assam though results will only be announced after polls in other states are completed in early May.
The Congress rules three of the five states facing polls. The party and its allies are fighting stiff battles against the national coalition's Communist allies as well as regional Opposition parties.
The Congress government in Assam is fighting for re-election against a regional Opposition party and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Opposition groups are highlighting alleged illegal immigration of migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and West Bengal go to the polls on May 11, with results expected the same day.
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