KARACHI: Pakistan’s interior ministry told the country’s top election body on Friday the army would not be able to provide security to all polling stations during the second phase of the local government elections in Karachi, Hyderabad and Thatta divisions due to its current deployment patterns across the country.
Pakistani authorities decided to strengthen security in the frontier regions after its soldiers and checkpoints came under attack from Afghanistan in recent months. A spike in militant violence was also witnessed in different parts of the country – especially in the two western provinces bordering Afghanistan – which was claimed by a proscribed network, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whose top leadership is said to be based in the neighboring state.
The ministry, which deals with the country’s internal administrative and security matters, communicated the situation to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in an official letter after taking up the deployment issue with officials at the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi.
“GHQ has stated that as already intimated given current deployment and very high number of sensitive and most sensitive polling stations, required static deployment and security cover to polling staff and material as desired by Election Commission of Pakistan is not possible,” said the ministry’s letter.
It maintained that “effort will be made to provide the required static deployment of [paramilitary] Rangers” to support the police, though it asked the ECP “to reevaluate categorization of polling stations” and reduce the number of facilities requiring heightened security to 500.
The ECP rejected the Sindh administration’s request to delay the local government polls in Karachi and Hyderabad divisions earlier in the day, saying the elections would be held as per schedule on January 15.
The provincial government had said that it wanted to postpone the electoral contest in the area since one of its coalition partners in the federal government had reservations over the delimitation of constituencies.
