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Basharat Peer in Dumhaal (Anantnag district)
Entering Dumhaal is like entering a fortress. A soldier warns: "We have information that militants are hiding in the nearby forest. An encounter may follow. You should not go ahead." After a minor debate, he relents.
Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Minister Sakina Itoo's two-storeyed house is hard to miss, surrounded as it is by a barbed-wire fence, sandbag bunkers, and gun-toting guards.
Being a minister in the Kashmir government has its own disadvantages. The policeman on duty ascertains the identity of visitors, frisks them, and only then allows entry.
The precautions are necessary. Itoo, wearing a brown pheran (the traditional long, loose Kashmiri gown), shades of depression and fear writ large on her face, recalls the numerous militant attacks on her and her house. "Every month there is an attack on my house. Last year, my uncle was killed. I have already survived three attempts on my life."
Itoo ignored a degree in medicine and took up politics after militants killed her father, a National Conference leader. But what makes this 30-something legislator the most targeted politician in the state?
"The opposition has a hand in it," she says. "They are afraid of contesting elections honestly." (Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah had also made the same allegation, provoking People's Democratic Party vice-president Muzaffer Beg to threaten him with a lawsuit.)
Itoo faces a stiff fight in the Noorabad constituency from the PDP's Abdul Rashid Zargar, a resident of an adjacent village, who was a minister in the Congress government in the state in the 1970s. But no political activity can be seen in the villages of the constituency, though the anti-incumbency wave is visible at many places.
The residents of Khurbatpora village, which has more than 4,000 voters, talk of boycotting the election. "What is the difference between the NC and the PDP?" says Ishtiaq Nazir, a village youth. "It is old wine in a new bottle. We will vote only if we are forced to."
A few kilometres up the narrow, recently metalled road at Lisserpora village, Subhan Beg, a potter, is ignorant about the election. "What do I get out of it? Nobody cares for poor people like me," he says.
Riyaz Ahmad, an unemployed agricultural graduate, agrees with Beg. "We want to boycott the elections," he says. "The legislators come to our village only at election time and do not even show their faces till the next election. What is the point in voting? If we have to vote, then we will vote against the National Conference."
Itoo offers a politician's answer to all these complaints. "There are 55,000 voters in my constituency," she argues, "and not everyone supports me. You cannot satisfy everyone. My workers are scared, and all the opposition does is talk."
The minister, however, does enjoy some support in Dumhaal and other areas in the constituency. Dumhaal resident Siddiq Khan says, "She has worked for the development of the area. She got a road and a hospital built. We will vote for her."
Clearly, it is going to be a tight electoral battle in a terrain marked by mountains, militants, and heavy troop deployment.
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