Date:12/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/12/stories/2008051254531300.htm

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One killed, 4 injured in landmine explosion

Special Correspondent

Polling peaceful barring minor incidents, says Buddhadeb

— PHOTO: SUSHANTA PATRONOBISH

Patient wait: Women queue up outside a polling booth in Nandigram, West Bengal on Sunday, during the first phase of the panchayat polls.

Kolkata: One person was killed and four critically injured when a vehicle carrying personnel of the Border Security Force returning from election duty was blown up in a landmine explosion in the Bandwan area of West Bengal’s Purulia district, marring an otherwise largely peaceful panchayat elections, held amid tight security, in five districts of the State on Sunday.

It is suspected that the explosive device was planted by militants of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) that had called for a poll boycott. The incident occurred in a forest area, a senior State police official said here.

Spotlight on Nandigram

For much of the earlier part of the day, the spotlight was on Nandigram in the State’s Purbo Medinipur district that has remained troubled in the run-up to the polls.

Long queues were seen outside several booths in Nandigram well after 5 p.m. when polling was scheduled to end. Voting was largely peaceful though there were a few complaints of booth jamming and allegations by supporters of different parties that those belonging to the rival groups were preventing them from proceeding to the polling stations. The voters’ turnout was nearly 70 per cent till the evening, State Election Commission officials said.

Some minor incidents apart the polls were peaceful, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told a television channel while on his way to Malda.

“The elections in the five districts were generally peaceful and fair,” Biman Bose, chairman of the Left Front Committee, said here.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said a “free and fair election could not be expected from this State government.” She alleged that voters had been terrorised in at least 50 per cent of the polling stations in Nandigram where workers of the CPI(M) resorted to widespread rigging.

Elaborate security arrangements were made in Nandigram.