February 15, 2008	Friday	Safar 07, 1429

LAHORE, Feb 14: A meager honorarium of Rs155 a day and hectic duty hours in the face of terrorism or violence threats have forced retired servicemen, paramilitary forces and police officials to stay away from election duty in the city district, police sources say.

The central police office, through an advertisement published in national dailies on Feb 7, invited retired security officials for special police to approach police lines in their districts if they were interested in election duty. They were to show their pension papers, discharge certificates and identity cards to prove their identity.

Police were to recruit 11,000 people for special police for 3,214 polling stations in the provincial capital but the target has yet to be achieved, sources say.

They claim around 8,000 civilians were recruited for election duty. After failing to attract retired officials, the authorities are recruiting students and other unskilled workers.

They said the people recruited in special police would be paid Rs155 a day which was not sufficient. The government should have allocated an attractive amount, they say.

They said age factor was another reason which discouraged retired people from joining the special police and police preferred recruiting young and strong people for assistance.

The officials added people were afraid of terrorism and suicide attacks in the country and this could also be a possibility of non-availability of retired security officials. A police official said retired officials were also not interested in election duty they had to cast their vote.

Senior Superintendent of Police (operations) Aftab Ahmed Cheema confirmed that the target of recruiting special police was still short of 3,000 people.

He said police had recruited a majority of ordinary people due to non-availability of retired security officials. He said chapter 17 of the Police Rules of 1934 did not fix the recruitment of only retired security officials and allowed recruitment of ordinary people as helping police.