PESHAWAR: Police have claimed to foil an attempt to sabotage re-polling in National Assembly constituency of NA-43 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa district of Tank on Monday during a terrorist attack on police deployed on poll duty, in which a terrorist was killed.

Police said the miscreants targeted the cops and FC personnel performing election duty in Gomal police station limits in Kot Azam area, triggering a fierce gun battle which left a terrorist dead.

During re-polling in NA-43 (Tank-Dera Ismail Khan), armed assailants targeted police on duty, a senior police official told the media. The police retaliated and killed one terrorist. The re-voting at six polling stations was stopped for some time but later it was resumed as the security forces have been put on high alert in the area.

Earlier, re-polling was going on peacefully at the three polling stations of NA-43. Registered voters in these polling stations are more than 5,000 and polling on these stations were not completed on 8th of February due to security reasons.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has directed to conduct re-polling in the six polling stations of NA-43, Tank-cum-Dera Ismael Khan.

According to the ECP spokesperson, re-polling in these six polling stations, initially planned for Feb 17, has been moved to Feb 19. The polling on Feb 8 was interrupted because of the law and order situation.

The ECP has instructed the Chief Secretary, Inspector General of Police, and other law enforcement agencies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to coordinate and ensure a conducive environment for the public in this matter.

In NA-43, Dawar Khan Kundi, an independent candidate, emerged victorious with 63,556 votes, while Asad Mehmood of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (JUI-P) secured the runner-up position with 62,730 votes.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024