February 18, 2008	Monday	Safar 10, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 17: The Sindh government has hired the services of around 20,000 special police personnel for four days for election duty.

They will be in addition to the 55,000 regular police of Sindh, 15,000 Rangers and a sizable strength of the army, senior officials have said.

Dubbing the men hired for four days as ‘special police’, Sindh home secretary Arif Ahmed Khan told Dawn that this force comprised such persons who had earlier applied for police jobs but failed in interviews after clearing all other formalities.

The four-day hiring has been done under the provision of the Police Order 2002, the home secretary said.

Avoiding giving figures about the army’s presence in the city, he said the number of army men would be enough to be posted in every district up to the union council level.

There are 3,472 police stations in the city and 2,200 are being described as sensitive.

The largest concentration of polling stations is in North Nazimabad while the areas of Clifton and Defence have the least number of polling stations, security officials said.

Unlike previous elections, Rangers will also be posted at sensitive polling stations with police in the city.

An extra force of 7,000 men has been generated by pooling manpower from different police headquarters, Sindh Reserve police and training institutes.

City police chief Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui said Karachi had an effective police force of 27,000 men. And the 20,000 force would be committed to election duties.

The police force would be handed over to three zones that will distribute the force into different towns.

A senior security official of police said that there would be three types of police deployment on the polling day.

First, there will static deployment where police personnel will be stationed on the premises of polling stations, the second would be patrolling while the third police deployment would be at the announcement of results at the polling stations.

Investigation police staff posted at different police stations have also been assigned election duties.

For every 10 polling stations, a mobile response unit comprising several vans, an SHO and a DSP would be available throughout the polling day.

Similarly, to meet the manpower deficit, services of traffic police have also been acquired for polling day duties, a senior police official confirmed.

A total of Rs18 million has been allocated as feeding charges for the police force, the city police chief said.

In line with the Election Commission’s code of conduct, Section 144 had come into effect and action would be taken against display of arms, the city police chief said.

However, it remains to be seen if any action against youths brandishing arms will be taken.