At women’s college Gandhi Nagar the polling staff was taking food in the polling station. Outside, a cop was keeping vigil, but there were no long queues. A lone voter, Sumesh Pandit, was sitting on the chair besides the cop waiting for the polling staff to take their meals to cast his vote. Before him only 51 voters had cast their vote.

By 1:50 pm at a special polling station for the Kashmiri Pandits, who have been staying in Jammu after the militancy started in Kashmir Valley, out of the 525 voters less than 10 per cent had cast their vote. “We are facing multiple problems in Jammu. We want to return back to Kashmir. That is the only way our problems will be over” said Sumesh Pandit, who has been living in a rented house at the Gangyal.

Outside the polling station in the directorate of school education at migrant camp Muthi, despite the boycott call by some Kashmiri Pandit organizations, nearly 15 voters who found their names missing from the voter list protested blocking the main road. The youth who protested burnt the effigy of Chief Election Commissioner of India and raised slogans against the Election Commission. Police had to resort to mild lathicharge to disperse them, injuring two youth. “We took four of the voters into custody. They were trying to disrupt polling and blocked the main road” said Senior Superintendent of police, Jammu, Manohar Singh.

“There are thousands of voters whose names are missing from the voter list. Actually over 29 thousand voters could have cast vote. But the government wants the migrants to fill the M-form and not more than 9 thousand voters registered for polling” said Vijay Chikan, Spokesman of Jammu and Kashmir National United Front, a Kashmiri Pandit organisation.

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