Federal Government has decided to impose section 144 in Azad Jammu Kashmir for ensuring peaceful elections, besides providing additional 10,000 troops to AJK and all provinces to assist the local administrations in maintaining law and order, said Rehman Malik Federal Minister for Interior here on Tuesday.
The general elections of AJK Legislative Assembly including refugee seats across the country would be held in a peaceful atmosphere, the Minister said while addressing a joint press conference along with Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo. The Minister chaired a high level meeting for which chief secretaries, inspector generals and other concerned officials from all the four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan were invited to evolve a formula for holding peaceful elections of AJK Assembly.
"We convened the meeting to take all the stakeholders on board for the smooth conduct of elections and with the active support of all concerned, Federal Government will succeed to obtain the goal," Malik said. The high level meeting decided that Section 144 would be imposed in the elections constituencies and no one would be allowed to carry weapon on the last day of election campaign as well on election day, Malik informed the media.
He said that a committee comprising local DPOs, DCOs and SHOs would be constituted to identify miscreants in the constituencies so that they could be detained. Responding to a question on terrorism, Malik said he was firm to flush terrorism out from the country, which is a cancer that had spread in every nook and corner of the country. The nation should wake up today with the sole aim to eliminate terrorism once for all, he added.
Addressing the press conference, Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Manzoor Wattoo said that the government is very clear in its objectives of holding free, fair and transparent elections in AJK. He said AJK government has only 6,000 law enforcing personnel and additional force would be deployed for their assistance in maintaining law and order situation on the Election Day.