Army troops will be deployed for elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir to ensure fool proof security and hold free and fair elections; so that nobody could point fingers at the results. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said this on Monday while inaugurating a National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) mega-centre in the federal capital.
Around 22,000 law enforcement personnel including the army troops will assist the Kashmir administration to ensure security on the polling day and hold free and fair elections, he said.
"The free and fair elections in Azad Kashmir are vital not only for Pakistan, but also for the international community to differentiate between elections held in the Indian-held Kashmir and Azad Kashmir," he said.
Elections for Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly will be held on July 21, 2016 wherein major political parties including PML-N, PPP, PTI, Muslim Conference and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front are taking part.
The minister said the law enforcement personnel will reach Kashmir for the election duty on July 18 or July 19 and they will be deployed both inside and outside of the polling stations.
Talking about Karachi's law and order, he said the ratio of street crime has increased in the metropolis in recent months and capacity-building of the police is being done to deal with it. The minister said the Rangers in Karachi have helped improve overall law and order in the city as crime rate including terrorism incidents, kidnapping and kidnapping for ransom, target killing and extortion has come down significantly.
About killing of Amjad Sabri and kidnapping of Chief Justice Sindh son, he said that all spying agencies have been working hard on these cases and they have got significant leads in one of these cases too.
About political chaos in the country, he said that Imran Khan should ask PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari about his foreign properties and assets before launching a joint campaign against the government. He also urged Bilawal Bhutto and his father Asif Ali Zardari to declare their assets as the minister claimed, "They are the only party leaders who haven't declared their assets."
The minister said that PPP leaders during their tenure in the government first tried to withdraw all their corruption cases from courts under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), but were resisted from the then chief justice of Supreme Court. He said the PPP leaders later appointed chairman National Accountability Bureau of their choice and got all their corruption cases withdrawn from the courts.
About NADRA mega-centres and CNICs verifications, he said that one mega-centre each in Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta will be set up while three centres will be set up in Karachi soon. He said that CNICs verification is a national security issue and a five-pronged strategy has been adopted to complete it in due time.
The minister also revealed that two persons also managed to get recruited in the armed forces on fake CNICs. Out of 200,000 citizens who sent text messages on a given number for verification of their cards, over 5,000 of them confirmed that some aliens or fake persons were registered among their family tree, he said.
The minister said that out of 5,000 complaints the NADRA has verified 950 persons so far as fake or aliens. "We are encouraged by the public response on the CNICs verification and hope the process will help weed out fake identity card holders," he said.