KARACHI, Oct 9: The localities behind the Lines Area were in the grip of tension on Wednesday following incidents of tearing off of election banners and posters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement allegedly by workers of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement and the PML (Q).

The area which had already been declared sensitive by the Election Commission was in the grip of tension on the eve of elections. Workers of political parties, including those of religio-political parties, were seen in a charged mood while setting up their election camp offices in the vicinity of polling stations set up at PECHS Senior Model School and PECHS Girls School.

With a view to checking untoward incidents, a large number of police and Rangers personnel had been deployed on Thursday in and around the Lines Area. The SHO of Ferozabad police station himself kept on patrolling the locality through most of Wednesday night.

A former MPA of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Liaquat Qureshi, who visited the locality to ascertain the situation prevailing in and around Lines Area, told Dawn that though Mohajir Qaumi Movement’s workers had been tearing off Muttahida’s banners and posters which were there in all the streets in the vicinity of PECHS Senior Model School and the so-called green belt that bifurcated PECHS and Lines Area, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had asked its workers not to get provoked by such acts and remain peaceful.

“Isn’t it amazing that the government and the Election Commission have been claiming that they are holding free and fair elections, but our candidates for NA-251 and PS-114, Syed Safwanullah and Rauf Siddiqui, respectively, were not able to visit the Lines Area for canvassing support during the entire election campaign which ended on Tuesday midnight,” he said.

The election campaign in almost entire Lines Area and its adjoining PECHS Block 2, particularly in its Union Council No 6 of Jamshed Town, remained a low-key affair because of a charged political atmosphere.