The Chief Election Commissioner had earlier telephoned the CEO's office and election observers to hold an inquiry and send a report to him.

The Indian Express had carried an eyewtiness account yesterday on how police stopped passenger buses on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway, offloaded passengers and forced them to attend Abdullah's rally despite people pleading that they be let off since they had crucial work to attend to.

However, Chief Electoral Officer S V Bhave claimed that a preliminary investigation did not indicate that the buses were stopped, neither did the Chief Minister mean what the press hadreported. ``There was a huge crowd of around 1,800 people, who were on the road that is why the traffic was disrupted for some time,'' he said. However, he added: ``The election observers at Baramulla are conducting a separate enquiry and they will file their report to the Commission''.

District Electoral Officer Sheikh Mohammad Hussain said he did not conduct the inquiry but had sent his Chief Education Officer there. ``My Chief Education Officer told me that nothing had happened. In fact, the security people only stopped the buses for frisking the passengers,'' Hussain said.

He, however, did not comment on the Chief Minister's remarks regarding the use of force to get voters out. ``I did not go there myself and I have not yet asked the Chief Education officer regarding it,'' he said.

Quoting another enquiry conducted by State Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitly, Bhave said the Chief minister had not said that force would be used. ``The CM (only) said that militants are using force to not allow people to comeout to vote and so he asked them to fearlessly come out and vote for whichever party they wanted to,'' Bhave said.