LANDI KOTAL/KOHAT, June 19: MNA-elect from Bara Maulana Khalilur Rehman has urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to send additional teams to the Tirah valley in order to ensure registration of more people as voters.

The MNA, at a meeting on Tuesday with Khyber Agency’s assistant election commissioner Farid Khan claimed that only eight per cent of the Tirah residents had been registered as voters. He cited illiteracy and remoteness of the area as the main reasons for non-registration of residents as voters.

Mr Khan told the MNA that fighting between two religious groups in Tirah had affected the enrolment drive adversely. He said a large number of people in the area were doing without the Computerised National Identity Cards.

He, however, assured the MNA that the ECP staff would extend all possible help to non-registered people at the display centres established in three tehsils of the Khyber Agency.

The MNA said he would be informing the residents of the enrolment drive through FM radio stations and would advise local prayer leaders to motivate the people in this regard. He said women would also be encouraged to enrol as voters.

In Kohat, Musarat Khan Afridi, deputy election commissioner of Kohat and its Frontier Region, appealed to the people to take the campaign for voter registration as their national duty. Otherwise millions of rupees spent on the exercise would go to waste.

Talking to journalists, he said they had completed their assigned task and it was up to the people now to benefit from the opportunity to get themselves registered as voters.

He said if anybody failed to check the electoral rolls, he could file an application to the respective deputy or assistant election commissioner after the July 3 deadline to get his name entered in the voters’ list. He said officials concerned had been empowered under section 18 of the Electoral Act to consider such applications for registration.

He said heads of families who could not come to their hometowns during the given time for checking the electoral rolls should contact him during office hours at 0922-9260144.

Similarly, Abdur Razzaq, assistant election commissioner (rural), Frontier Region of Kohat, can be contacted at 0922-9260145, Mohammad Raziq, assistant election commissioner, Karak, at 0927-210638 and Raham Karim, assistant election commissioner, Hangu, at 0925-621099.

He said 668 display centres had been established in the three districts, Orakzai Agency and Frontier Region of Kohat.