Four boys killed by blast in bush
The orgy of election-related violence continued unabated yesterday as another bomb exploded, killing four boys in the southern city of Coimbatore, the scene of Saturday's serial bombings in which 49 people died and more than 180 were injured.
The four Muslim boys were playing cricket not far from the city centre when their ball rolled into a bush, disturbing a bag containing the bomb.
Yesterday's blast took to 126 the number of people killed after just one round of voting, compared with 52 for the entire 1996 election.
A further four phases of polling are planned before March 7, with trouble-prone states including Jammu and Kashmir yet to go to the polls.
Bihar, in the north, is living up to its reputation as one of the most violent states, with reports of widespread ballot-rigging in hundreds of polling stations.
Election-related violence yesterday claimed its 29th Bihari victim when a senior policeman was shot dead in Jehanabad constituency.
Landmines planted by Maoist rebels and running gun battles between militants and police in the southern and central parts of the state have accounted for the bulk of the casualties.
Among those killed were four government employees who were travelling in a minibus blown up by a landmine.
A further 12 people on the minibus, which was carrying ballot boxes to a polling station, had yet to be accounted for and may have been kidnapped by militants, police officials said.
Election Commission officials had declared more than two-thirds of the 82,760 polling booths in the state sensitive or hyper-sensitive and deployed paramilitary forces to maintain order.
Clashes between the Janata Dal party and the breakaway Rashtriya Janata Dal claimed four lives.
A second round of polling in northern Bihar is to be held on Sunday. The commission ordered a re-run of polling at 500 stations in the state.
