SRINAGAR. India. Sept 8: Kashmir was calm today with shops and vendors doing brisk business, a day after 11 people were killed as thousands of voters braved death threats in the first state elections in a decade, reports AFP

Shoppers and traffic returned to the streets of Srinagar after a tense Saturday when the city observed a strike to coincide with polling in 26 of the 87 Kashmir assembly seats under tight security.

More than half the 1.3 million electorate In the Himalayan state voted Saturday despite boycott calls by Muslim separatists, waging a dragging bloody war to end Indian rule:

Eleven people were killed in scattered violence across the northern state. But officials said only four of them were re-

lated to the-poll. the first since March 1987 to pick a government in Kashmir.

Two brothers were killed when Muslim militants lobbed a grenade at a polling station, while a civilian died in firing between the rebels and Indian troops elsewhere.

(5ne villager was reportedly killed in alleged firing by Pakistani troops on the long Kashmir border.

There were no reports of violence in Kashmir early today.

The Border Security Force (BSF) said it arrested two Muslim militants in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, overnight Saturday. They were identified as Latiful Haq of Al Umar group and Al Jehad's Mushtaq coora”.

"Even the (India-Pakistan) border is quiet," a Kashmir offi-

cial said, referring to alleged Pakistani firing and shelling on Saturday that he claimed was aimed at sabotaging the elections.

Kashmir's chief Election ok ficial^ Jalil Khan, a Muslim, said he was delighted that no polling officer or candidate was slain despite death threats by Muslim separatists.

The poll percentage is encouraging.” government spokesman Ashok Kumar said. The elections were held free and fair. Voting was Incident -free despite militant threats.

There were only half-a-dozen street protests in the polling areas, and newspapers reported that few voters alleged coersion by security forces, unlike in the May parliamentary election when there were widespread complaints.