Voters in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramullah and Kupwara were today allegedly attacked and thrashed for ignoring the voting boycott in the state and casting their ballot in the Lok Sabha Elections. Masked men also attacked a group of travellers from Kupwara and sliced of the fingers of those who voted.

Kupwara/ Baramulla: Voters in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramullah and Kupwara were today attacked and thrashed for ignoring the voting boycott in the state and casting their ballot in the Lok Sabha Elections. Masked men also attacked a group of travellers from Kupwara and sliced off the fingers of those who voted.

Imtiyaz Ahmad, a-36-year old labourer from Kupwara, along with eight others, set out for Sopore, in north Kashmir on Thursday morning. Ahmad was to go to Srinagar from Sopore.

Five minutes ahead of Sopore town, near Seelo, almost 15 masked men stood in the middle of the road — armed with iron roods, bamboo sticks and Hexa-Blades — and forcibly stopped the vehicle.

"At first, I thought they were personnel of the Special Task Force of Jammu and Kashmir police in civics, but when I looked minutely at them, they were young men, but masked, a traumatised Ahmad told Firstpost.

As soon as the car came to halt, the masked men ordered the passengers to show their index fingers.

The first one to be dragged out of the vehicle was Ahmad because he had an inked finger after he had voted.

Ahmad was told to stand in a nearby link road, where four people held his hand and sliced the skin of his index finger, as if they were sharpening a pencil with a blade.

"I cried like a boy, I cursed political leaders, cursed myself for voting but couldn’t curse them, as they stood in front of me. I was bleeding profusely. A school teacher pleaded with the masked men to leave me, but theythrashed him,” a visibly shaken, Ahmad said, his finger bandaged.

This was not the only incident of voters being thrashed. In north Kashmir, such incidents occurred in many places across Baramulla town. The police, in both Sopore and Baramulla town, swung into action and chased the masked men but could not apprehend them.

All this happened a day after polls concluded in north Kashmir’s Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency with 39.06 percent overall turnout.

Protesters stopped a vehicle near a forest check post in Baramulla’s Azad Gunj area. Those who had voted were stripped and paraded naked on the streets, perhaps a first in Kashmir’s two decades of conflict.

The Baramulla police rushed to the spot but the perpatrators had fled by the time they reached.

Eyewitnesses in Azad Gunj area told Firstpost on Friday those who had ink marks on their index finger were thrashed badly, stripped in front of women to be humiliated more.

In strife torn Kashmir, these incidents of violence against the voters has now pitched three towns against each other. The residents of Kupwara, in retaliation, removed all vendors and shopkeepers who hail from Sopore. Some of them were thrashed as well.

"They (people from Sopore) can’t set their foot now in Kupwara. We will see how they do business here. We also warned drivers not to enter the town, if they do they will have to face consequences,” Afaq Mir, a driver, at a Kupwara bus stand said.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) North Kashmir, GH Bhat said a vehicle from Kupwara was stopped in Sopore and that was checked by some youth. "After checking the vehicle, there was a thrashing incident. Police reached the spot and miscreants were chased away.”

But the people who voted in Kupwara say, to vote was their right, and the administration must make sure these miscreants are arrested.

Abdul Lateef, who was thrashed in Baramulla’s Azad Gunj area,says he isn’t ashamed of having voted, because he did not have basic amenities in his village. "They wanted to protest which was their right and we wanted to vote which was ours," he says.

"You can’t cut the fingers of people and justify it by saying we are traitors. People in towns and cities get everything on their doorstep. We have to fight for it everyday in villages. It is just to make sure that people don’t vote in the assembly elections," Lateef said.

Baramulla MLA Muzaffar Hussain Beig, who is also a candidate for PDP from the Lok Sabha seat of Baramulla told Firstpost that not only in Baramulla but in Sopore also, despite police presence, “miscreants and secessionists” had a free run on voters.

"The Indian state is too soft on these culprits. It should not indulge in pretense of democracy and sovereignty over Kashmir. People have voted despite a conspiracy between ruling party and certain elements in administration and some so-called religious and secessionist organisation, they have engineered this kind of situation in Baramulla,” he said.

He also added that "Today I feel sorry that those who voted, doesn’t matter for whom, they are being brutalised, their bones broken and the administration sits in comfort.”

Strongly criticising voters being thrashed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted that action will be taken against anyone found trying to terrorise voters and the police have been instructed accordingly.

Abdullah tweeted that the "gangs moving around trying to terrorise those who voted will not be tolerated".

Meanwhile hardline separatists leader Syed Ali Geelani also appealed to the youth of Sopore to not "beat up people who voted in the recently held Lok Sabha elections".

"I have information that angry youth are thrashing and beating the people who voted in the recent elections. My humble appeal to the youth is not to beat anyone on this issue," he said.

If nothing, this act by few miscreants have furthered the divide between rural and urban Kashmir.