The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government has asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to seek assistance of Pakistan Army for ensuring fool-proof security for the re-polling to be held at 365 polling station of the province on July 5, 2015. The provincial government will also deploy of heavy police contingents at every polling station and will also approach EC for increasing the number of polling stations. These decisions were taken in a high level meeting held at CM House Tuesday with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the Chair.
The meeting was also attended by Provincial Ministers, Muhammad Atif, Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, Shahram Tarakai, Muzaffar Syed Advocate, MPAs, Shaukat Yousafzai, Yaseen Khalil, PTI Provincial Organiser, Fazal Muhammad, Chief Secretary, IG Police, and Secretaries Home and Local Government departments. The meeting had a detail review of the re-polling arrangements and the security situation and took various important decisions regarding smooth and peaceful polling.
According to the decisions the provincial government will approach EC for the Army assistance besides deploying at least one hundred police personnel at every polling station. In order to maintain peace and order at women police stations, assistance of Punjab and Islamabad's lady police will also be sought and Election Commission will be asked to considerably increase the number of polling stations, the meeting decided.
It was also decided that carrying arms would be prohibited on the Election Day under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, a security zone would be created within 50 yards radius at every polling station and closure of all printing presses of the province would be ensured from 4th till 5th July.
The participants also decided that male supervisors or voters would not be allowed to enter into any women polling station and EC would be asked to properly train the two thousand Lady Health Workers and other polling staff to avoid any inefficiency on the polling day.
Addressing the meeting, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said that in view of the strong apprehensions for sabotaging the electoral process on part of the same opposition parties, the law enforcement agencies must take all possible and strict measures to foil the designs of nefarious elements. He said that although the provincial government would extend every possible support to EC for ensuring free and peaceful polling yet it would strongly recommend EC to obtain assistance of Pakistan Army for maintaining peace and order on the Election Day.