An injured police official being taken to hospital after a Maoist attack in Dumka, Jharkhand
Three polling officials and five policemen were killed in Jharkhand on Thursday evening when the bus they were traveling in hit a landmine allegedly planted by the Maoists in the Dumka district.
The team was returning to Dumka after conducting polls. A dozen more policemen were injured in the blast, which completely destroyed the bus.
Reports say voting will take place again at one polling booth after electronic voting machines were destroyed.
Dumka was among the four parliamentary constituencies in Jharkhand which went to polls yesterday.
This is the second deadly attack by suspected Maoists since the nine-phase national election began earlier this month. On April 12, as many as 13 people, including poll officials and jawans, were killed in two Maoist strikes in Chhattisgarh.
The first attack took place in the Darbha Valley in Sukma district. Five jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed and six others were injured when Maoists allegedly blew up an ambulance. A technician who was seriously hurt in the attack, died the next morning.
Less than an hour later, and 160 km away in Bijapur, Maoists blew up a bus in which the poll officials were returning. Five poll officials, the bus driver and its cleaner were killed while three others were injured.
Maoists have called for a boycott of polling in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and warned of attacks.