(Updates with death of air force official) By Sujeet Kumar RAIPUR, India, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist insurgents triggered landmine blasts and opened fire to scare away voters in elections in a central Indian state on Friday, killing a policeman and an air force official. Voting in some rural areas came to a halt, and armed rebels blocked roads and snatched electronic voting machines in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state, a hotbed of Maoist activism, officials said. The election in Chhattisgarh is a key test for the Congress party, which is fighting the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the vote. One policeman was killed and four others were wounded in two separate landmine blasts triggered by rebels in Bastar. In Bijapur district, about 500 km (310.7 miles) from state capital Raipur, rebels fired at a helicopter as it was taking off after polling ended, hitting Air Force Sergeant Mustafa Ali in the head and killing him instanteously, senior police official Pawan Deo said. Rebels also opened fire in 15 different places in the state to scare away voters. Voting concluded peacefully in other parts of the state, officials said. At least 55 percent of the 6.4 million inhabitants voted in the first of the two-phase election process in the state, an Election Commission official said in New Delhi. India kicked off a month-long period of state elections on Friday, a precursor to the general election in early 2009 that will pit the ruling Congress-led coalition against the BJP, with an economic slowdown emerging as a major concern for voters. [ISL277864] As well as Chhattisgarh, the states that will go to the polls are Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Delhi and the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, which will vote in stages for security reasons. In Kashmir, thousands of troops will guard the vote in one of India's most troubled regions, where Muslim separatist leaders, many sent to jail without trial in the run-up to the vote, have called for a boycott. [nISL406273] The Maoists in Chhattisgarh had also called for a boycott. Maoist rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers, regularly attack government property and policemen. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as the gravest threat to India's internal security. Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency, which began in the late 1960s and stretches throughout rural areas in east, central and southern India. (Additional reporting by Nigam Prusty in New Delhi; Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Police commandos from India's northern state of Punjab take part in a laughter exercise during a yoga session at the commando complex in Mohali November 14, 2008. REUTERS/Ajay Verma (INDIA) ...
