CM Raghubar Das with his family at a polling booth in Jharkhand.

GUMLA/RANCHI: One person was killed and two others were injured after security personnel opened fire on a group of people at a polling booth in Chharda village under Sisai (ST) constituency in Gumla district of Jharkhand on Saturday.

Another 24 people, including three policemen, were injured in the violence that erupted after the firing.

While police said they were forced to open fire when some people tried to snatch their weapons, Md Asad Ansari, who was at the booth, said the clashes erupted after the cops started instructing people to vote for BJP.

"While we were in queue, some Railway Police Force (RPF) personnel instructed us to vote for kamal (lotus). When one elector objected to this, a policeman threatened to shoot him. When he dared them to go ahead, the cop aimed his gun at him and shot him in the leg," Ansari said.

The shooting created a chaos at the polling booth and the crowd started pelting stones at the security forces, forcing them to seek refuge on the terrace of the polling booth, from where they continued firing. Geelani Ansari, 28, was hit by a bullet and he died on the spot while 18-year-old Tabrez Ansari received bullet injuries.

Sisai returning officer Saurav Prasad said, "An altercation erupted between RPF personnel and the villagers. When some people tried to snatch a police rifle, they fired in self-defence."

Jharkhand chief electoral officer Vinay Kumar Choubey said polling was countermanded after the incident and polling parties along with EVMs were brought back to Sisai block headquarters. DEO Shashi Ranjan has sent a report to the EC recommending re-polling and a fresh date will be announced soon.

The two injured - Tabrez and Ashfaq - were taken to Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (Rims) in Ranchi, where they were operated upon. Their condition is critical, doctors said.

Meanwhile, CPI (Maoist) rebels opened fired on a bus in which a polling party was returning to its cluster after poll duty at a booth in Akri village of Khunti district around 5pm on Saturday. No one was injured in the incident. The 20 constituencies that went to polls in the second phase on Saturday recorded a voter turnout of 64.39%.

(With inputs from Jamshedpur )

