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Srinagar, Sunday (AFP)

Twenty-one people including 12 Muslim rebels and two Indian troops were killed in Kashmir, as four contestants in the ongoing elections here survived assassination attempts, police said.

All four attacks on candidates occurred in Anantnag district, which will be facing the regional vote Tuesday in the third leg of Indian Kashmir's phased state elections which began September 16.

Four people were killed and woman candidate Khalid Mustaq of the opposition National Congress Party was seriously injured in a landmine blast near the town of Kulgam, 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, police said.

Her father, Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, two supporters and a police guard died in the blast at 2:45 pm (0900 GMT).

Mustaq's car hit a landmine while on its way to a rally.

A lesser-known militant group, al Arifeen, claimed responsibility for the attack and the police said the outfit was a front of the formidable Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrilla force..

Injured candidate Mustaq's constituency is Devsar, which adjoins the Noorabad seat of Kashmir's only woman government minister Sakina Itoo, who has faced four assassination bids.

The motorcade of Abdul Majid Mir, who is from Kashmir's ruling National Conference party, was also attacked in Anantnag's Shangus seat, the police said, adding that one of his supporters was injured.

Independent candidate Bhasir Asad Bhat survived a militant attack Saturday near Bijbehara town, 45 kilometres (28 miles) south of Srinagar, when militants hurled a grenade at a pre-poll rally he was addressing. Three policemen and a civilian were injured in the blast.

Muslim rebels late Friday fired rockets at the house of a candidate from the ruling National Conference party, Syed Abdul Rashid, in a village near Kokernag, 70 kilometers (45 miles) from Srinagar.

"The militants also opened fire," he said, adding one of the rockets hit the house causing some damage. However, there were no casualities.

Rashid, who is contesting from the Kokernag legislative seat, was at home when the gunmen struck.

Meanwhile two militants and a policeman were killed in a gunbattle in the central district of Budgam during a patrol to look for guerrillas.

In a similar encounter in the village in northern Kupwara district, two militants and an Indian trooper were killed and another soldier injured, police said.

A police spokesman in Srinagar said eight more militants were killed in separate gunbattles with Indian forces in Kupwara, Rajouri and Poonch districts in the past 24 hours.

Muslim guerrillas shot dead a Muslim villager in Doda district late Friday, and two Muslim shepherds died in the crossfire of a shootout between militants and Indian soldiers in Rajouri, the spokesman said.

The first two rounds of polls were held in relative peace on September 16 and September 24, despite rebel threats to disrupt the vote. The fourth and final round of balloting is set for October 8.

A total of 579 people have died in Kashmir since New Delhi on August 2 announced the dates of the election. The dead include 36 activists of parties contesting the polls, including two candidates, and 283 rebels.

Vajpayee, meanwhile, Saturday described the first two phases of the Kashmir voting as "successful," as his deputy, Lal Krishna Advani, in the northern Indian city of Lucknow called the vote a "befitting reply to terrorism."

"The world is surprised that the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections are being conducted in a fair manner," Vajpayee said in New Delhi.

"After the elections, a government will be installed in the state and if the present government in the state has to be replaced, it will be replaced," he said of the National Conference, headed by India's Junior Foreign Minister Omar Abdullah.

Advani said: "The victory of the ballot over the bullet in the Kashmir elections is a befitting reply to terrorism."Meanwhile The two main opposition parties taking part in Indian Kashmir's controversial elections threatened to pull out of the polls unless election authorities crack down on alleged rigging by the ruling party.

The Congress, India's main opposition party, and the People's Democratic Party charged that the long-ruling National Conference tried to rig the first two rounds of voting this month for the 87-member Kashmir assembly.

Two more rounds of voting are due Tuesday and October 8, in an election India is hoping will showcase democracy and weaken support for separatists in the insurgency-wracked state, which is divided between India and Pakistan.

"It has become clear after the holding of two phases of elections that the central government and the Election Commission of India have made plans to make National Conference victorious in the elections," senior state Congress leader Parvez Hashmi said in Srinagar, the state summer capital.

Hashmi said that if the Election Commission did not respond to his party's concerns it would withdraw from the race.

"Government machinery is working in league with the ruling party and it is difficult to believe that the next two rounds would be free and fair," he said.

He alleged that the National Conference, headed by India's junior foreign minister Omar Abdullah, had cast bogus votes and was even in control of some missing electronic voting machines, which are being used in Kashmir for the first time.

Election authorities have acknowledged irregularities at nine polling stations which will re-vote Tuesday, Kashmir's deputy chief electoral officer Dheeraj Gupta said.

Police have also seized two voting machines from two government employees in northern Kashmir, but officials denied they were being misused.

"Electronic voting machines used during polling were properly sealed and were in the safe custody of the authorities," said Syed Haque Nawaz, deputy commissioner of the northern Kupwara district.

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