Voter verification: With cops killing, dissent grows

At a sit-in, protesters demand presence of soldiers in door-to-door campaign.

KARACHI:

The voter verification drive in Karachi appears to be heading to a stalemate. Hours after two policemen deployed with the election commission staff were gunned down, the opposition parties intensified their disapproval of the ongoing campaign.

Two police officers - head constable Akhtar Shahzad Masih and constable Abdul Aziz - were shot dead in a targeted attack in Korangi on Friday night when they were heading to a roadside restaurant for dinner. The assailants also took away the sub-machineguns of the victims.

The policemen were deployed at the election commission camp at a government school in Korangi’s Bilal Colony, Korangi SP Chaudhry Asad told The Express Tribune.

Outside the provincial election commission’s office, hundreds of men, women and children were mobilised by the opposition parties to join their protest against verification of electoral rolls.

At the sit-in, the protesters demanded implementing the Supreme Court decision to verify voters with the assistance of army. The demonstration, organised by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Awami Tehreek, Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party (STPP), Sunni Tehreek and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, is expected to continue till Monday, when senior political leaders will address it.

“The ongoing voter verification has once again been hijacked,” said Muhammad Husain Mehanti, the JI Karachi chief at the sit-in. “We want to inform the election commission and higher authorities that these results will not be acceptable.”



No amendments are being made to the electoral lists, which have been declared null and void by the Supreme Court, he alleged.

“We will devise our further line of action after consultations with other parties and will file a contempt of court petition in the apex court to suspend the whole process,” Mehanti announced at the sit-in that started around 3pm.

The Supreme Court had ordered a door-to-door verification of voters in Karachi on complaints about irregularities in enrolment of about three million citizens.

The drive has taken a turn for the worst with the murder of the two policemen. SP Chaudhry Asad said that initial investigation suggests workers of a political party shot them dead.

The protest started after the JI convened an all parties’ conference against voter verification and delimitation, which, according to Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, was not possible in the present circumstances. “Ebrahim’s statement has created doubts,” Gulzar Soomro of the STPP said. But the provincial election commissioner Mehbood Anwar was unmoved. “It is the constitutional right of every person to protest in a democratic way,” he said.

“Soldiers are giving us backup support by patrolling sensitive areas,” Anwar added.

He also brushed aside the killing of two cops deputed at assistant registrar’s office of election commission in Korangi, saying it was premature to link the incident to the voter verification process.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2013.