Daily Times

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police have cancelled the vacations of police personnel ahead of the local government (LG) elections in the remaining 65 tehsils (sub-districts) of the province on 31 March.

Inspector General (IG) Moazzam Jah Ansari on Monday directed all on-leave personnel to report to the concerned stations. The IGP also directed the police high-ups not to accept leave applications until the completion of the election process on 31 March.

Earlier, The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had declared 1609 polling stations as most sensitive, and 2319 as sensitive and 2069 normal, urging the KP police to ensure foolproof security arrangements. The highest number of 101 polling stations had been declared “most sensitive” in Shangla by the district election commission office. In Shangla, there were a total of 337 polling stations of which 125 polling stations had been declared “sensitive”. During a high-level meeting of the police and the ECP officials, the ECP informed that 8.57 million voters would exercise their right to vote for which 6,176 polling stations had been established.

The ECP urged the police chief to deploy security personnel according to the nature of the polling station. The administration in Shangla had decided to deploy lady health workers for security purposes at the women polling stations in the district.

Meanwhile, KP Chief Secretary Dr Shehzad Khan Bangash chaired a high level meeting to review the arrangements and preparations for the second phase of local government elections in KP.

The election commissioner , inspector general police, secretary home and secretary local government department attended the meeting in person while the commissioners and deputy commissioners concerned participated via video conference. During the meeting, arrangements for the local government elections in the 18 districts of KP were finalized to ensure secure and transparent polling.

Presiding over the meeting, the chief secretary directed divisional and district officers to install cameras on sensitive polling stations. He said that display of arms during elections would be banned and district administrations should impose section 144 and take necessary steps in this connection.