PESHAWAR: The Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter said on Tuesday it had made all arrangements for the upcoming national elections in the northwestern Pakistani province, which has been the scene of several militant attacks in the run up to Thursday's polls.
The statement by ECP's provincial chapter came a day after 10 policemen were killed and six others injured, when heavily armed militants attacked a police station the province's Dera Ismail Khan district. An election candidate was shot dead in the Bajaur district of the province late last month, besides several attacks targeting mainly the security forces.
Pakistan has seen a surge in militant attacks in it northwestern and southwestern provinces that border Afghanistan since 2022, when a ceasefire between the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the government broke down.
Amid the spike in attacks, 713 candidates have been running for National Assembly seats, while another 1,814 are vying for the provincial assembly seats in Thursday's national elections in the province, according to the ECP's KP chapter.
“A total of 15,696 polling stations have been established in the province, where 21,928,000 individuals will exercise their right to vote,” Shamshad Khan, the provincial election commissioner, told reporters in Peshawar on Tuesday.
The ECP had more than 45 million ballot papers printed and trained 181,000 officials for election duties, according to Khan. The regulator had declared 5,925 polling stations "sensitive" and another 4,178 to be "highly sensitive" in KP.
He said police personnel, civil armed forces and Pakistan's army will be deployed for security during the polls.
Meanwhile, the KP police also finalized their security plan for Thursday’s vote.
More than 91,000 police personnel, 24,109 administration staff and 14,821 "woman searchers" will perform security duties on Feb. 8, according to the provincial police department.
They will be supported by 18,816 army personnel, 982 members of the army’s Quick Response Force and 1,077 personnel of the police's Quick Response Team.
KP Inspector-General Akhtar Hayat Khan said in a statement that all available resources would be utilized to ensure safety of voters and candidates during the election.
But Rasool Dawar, a Peshawar-based journalist who has been covering militancy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for more than a decade, said the province’s situation was still "volatile" and police were a "soft target" of militants ahead of the polls.
He said while no militant group issued specific threats to sabotage the polls, they could still target security personnel during the voting process.