Maoist violence leading to the death of a police officer and a woman and sporadic incidents of bomb blasts, bids to capture booths and voters’ clashes with the police marked the first phase of panchayat polls in Bihar on Wednesday. An average 55 per cent voting was registered.
Assistant sub-inspector Rajendra Jha was shot dead by the Maoists outside a polling booth in Laximpur block of the southern Jamui district while a woman, identified as Aisa Khatoon, was shot dead allegedly for refusing to give a matchbox to the rebels who wanted it to set afire some tractors.
The first-phase polls for 28,639 village council posts — with 1.43 lakh candidates in the fray — were held in 57 blocks of 37 districts under palpable fear of the Maoists, who had called for a boycott of the polls. The police made 501 preventive arrests during the day. DGP Neelmani described the polls as “entirely peaceful”.
Two people were killed and four got injured as a bomb exploded allegedly during the process of being made at the house of a former mukhia, Sunuil Yadav, in Pilphari panchayat of Jamui district. Mr Yadav’s nephew is a candidate in the ongoing polls. In another incident of a bomb attack the night before the polls, a mukhia candidate, Rajkumar Singh of Sitamarhi district was badly injured and died on Wednesday. About three incidents of attempts for booth capturing were reported.