04 October 2004	Monday	18 Shaban 1425

PEHAWAR, Oct 3: The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has extended by one day the deadline for registration of the Afghan refugee voters in Pakistan in order to to allow more people to get registered for the forthcoming poll in their country.

Speaking at a press conference held here on Sunday, the regional head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Stuart Poucher, announced that all registration centres in Pakistan would remain open on Monday.

"Monday is the last day and there will be no further registration beyond tomorrow," he said. Citing reasons for the extension for one day, he said, they were providing opportunity to enable more and more refugees to participate in the Oct 9 Afghanistan presidential elections.

Under the original plan, Sunday was the last day for the registration and it was expected that from 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans would seek registration for the elections in Pakistan during the three-day process. But according to the IOM statement only 320,000 Afghans were registered in the country during the last two days.

Mr Poucher said the IOM was expecting relatively low participation of women, but at present they make 25 per cent of the total registered voters. In many refugee camps women were not allowed to take part in the registration process, he claimed.

Our Hangu correspondent adds: Unidentified people set on fire a registration centre in Lakhti Banda here. IOM officials said that unidentified persons torch the registration centre on Saturday night and hurled a hand grenade, but did not explode.