By Altaf Hussain BBC correspondent in Srinagar

Muhammad Aslam says he has voted for peace

Children played cricket on otherwise busy streets and hardly anyone showed an interest in what was happening in the latest stage of India's general election.

At a polling booth in the Government High School in the city's Rangteng area not a single vote was cast until 1400 (0830GMT).

Just one voter out of more than 1,200 turned up at another booth on the same premises.

'Traitors

An hour after the polling began, I visited a polling booth in the Tyndale Bisco School near the centre, to find the polling staff and the police relaxing outside.

Elections have no use for us. We have to think of over 100,000 martyrs Mushtaq Ahmed

"No voter has turned up. We do not expect any - still we are waiting just in case," said the presiding officer, Peer Ghulam Rasool.

At Ompora in Budgam district, the presiding officer switched on the electronic voting machine only after my colleagues and I had entered the polling booth at 0900, more than two hours after the voting was scheduled to begin.

In nearby Budgam town, I saw willing voters, but no sign of the snaking queues I saw during previous polls.

A dejected Mushtaq Ahmed, in his 20s, was standing by a polling booth at Liter Chadura, outside the town of Khansaheb.

He said: "Elections have no use for us. We have to think of over 100,000 martyrs. I am watching how some Kashmiris are behaving. They are playing traitors."

Inside, a young man standing in a queue to vote said: "I want azadi [independence] too. I am voting so that we have a government that builds roads and provides such other facilities for us."

Relaxed atmosphere

The main town of Khansaheb offered a spectacle reminiscent of the days before the armed conflict. Long queues of voters, relaxed and openly talking about their choice of candidate.

The majority of them voted for the same party; so there were no fisticuffs.

About 30 youths outside a polling booth at Chhoon village held an anti-election demonstration, chanting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans.

Polling booths throughout Kashmir were heavily guarded

But, a supporter of the National Conference party, who refused to identify himself, said they were activists of the state's ruling People's Democratic Party wanting to intimidate the supporters of his party.

Barring a few minor incidents, the militants made no attempt to disrupt polling on Monday. Likewise, allegations of coercion of voters by Indian troops were heard in only a few places.

The National Conference candidate Omar Abdullah's chief polling agent, Ali Mohammad Sagar, says the administration has conspired to ensure "zero polling" in Srinagar.

Police say they detained him for a while after a complaint by the presiding officer at a polling booth in Badu Bagh Khanyar, that he supported bogus voters' attempts to vote.

At a polling booth at Bulbul Lanker, where no votes were polled until 1400, a middle-aged voter, Mohammad Farooq, produced his ration card to convince the poll staff that he was a genuine voter.