ISLAMABAD, April 28: The Election Commission has appointed Lumberdars and retired army personnel as polling assistants in Islamabad, sources told Dawn on Sunday.

About 700 polling assistants have been appointed and two will be deployed at every station, the sources said.

These polling assistants will keep regular check on the staff of the stations and counting will also be carried out in their presence.

In rural areas, Lumberdars would perform the duty of the polling assistants and in urban areas this task had been given to retired personnel of armed forces, the sources said.

“It is a known fact that Lumberdars are held in high esteem in rural areas and their directives are given due weightage by the villagers,” the sources said.

Similarly, most of the retired officials of the armed forces, who have been appointed as polling assistants, are stated to be the members of public reconciliation and peace committees in police stations.

These committees were formed some two years ago in Islamabad.

Each police station has one such committee to resolve various disputes between two parties, in any case lodged in the police stations.

An official of the Election Commission, Islamabad, said these polling assistants had been appointed on voluntary basis. However, the presiding and assistant presiding officers would be paid for performing referendum duties, he added.

“The criteria for selecting polling assistants, states that they should be notables of their respective areas with good repute, clean past and no political affiliation,” said an official of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration, who is actively involved in the holding of referendum.

He said these polling assistants would ensure that the ballot boxes were not tampered with before polling, equipment required in polling stations was available and voters were properly briefed on the procedure of casting vote.

In fact, the polling assistants would act as polling agents of President Gen Pervez Musharraf, the official said. These polling assistants were expected to play a role in influencing the result of referendum on the pretext of assisting and guiding the voters on the procedure of polling, the sources added.

Discussing other arrangements of the referendum, the EC official said some 350 bags containing polling material had been prepared and sealed to be sent to 350 polling stations in Islamabad.

These bags would be handed over to the presiding officers on Monday and these could be unsealed in the polling stations only, he added.

He said out of 200 vehicles required for transportation on the referendum day, some 100 had already been handed over to the administration of the Islamabad Capital Territory by Sunday.