The administration, the law-enforcement personnel and the intelligence agencies would ensure peaceful conduct of elections at all costs,” the governor said while speaking at a briefing arranged by Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister Salahuddin Haider at the Sindh Secretariat.
Others who also spoke about the election arrangements included Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui, D-G Rangers Maj Gen Javed Zia and IG Police Asad Jehangir.
The governor said that local body elections have provided an opportunity to the people to determine the destiny of the country and strengthen the process of democracy by exercising their right to vote in the elections.
If they want solution of their pressing problems, they should come out and discharge their obligation to vote with enthusiasm.
He recalled participation of the people in the independence day festivities and asked them to demonstrate the same spirit in the elections by their full participation.
“Necessary preventive measures have been taken within available resources to discharge our responsibility for holding free, fair and transparent elections.”
The governor said that the process of local elections had, so far, remained very smooth and the government would ensure enforcement of the code of conduct in an effective manner.
He, however, said it was also essential that people fully participated in the election process.
Pointing out that rumours creat a number of problems, the governor said all efforts would be made to ensure that no panic was created among the people. because of any wrong information.
For this purpose, four control rooms have been set up which are interconnected with each other so that they could act on an information.
Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui asked the people to come forward and exercise their right to vote.
DG Rangers, Sindh, Maj-Gen Javed Zia, said that troops have started patrolling the city from Monday night while Rangers and police were patrolling from Aug 11. On the election day, helicopters would be used for surveillance in Karachi and interior of Sindh.
In reply to a question, he said that mobile phones would not be allowed inside polling stations and body-search would be conducted to check weapons. Polling camps would be set up at a distance of 200 meters, he added
The Rangers chief said that Karachi had been divided into three zones, namely Bhitai, Sachal and Abdullah Shah Ghazi while interior of Sindh had been divided into two zones — Sukkur and Hyderabad.
IG Police Sindh, Asad Jahangir, told newsmen that 15 complaint centres would be set up and quick response police force would also be made available to attend to any complaint.
A central control room has been set up at the office of DG Rangers where senior officers would be available while another control room would be set up in the office of CCPO Karachi, in addition there would be people on hotline.
Earlier, Advisor on Information Salahuddin Haider in his introductory remarks said these elections were significant and would have far-reaching effect. He also informed about arrangements made by the information department to facilitate the coverage of elections.