Police stay on toes

Rawalpindi police chief makes rounds of sensitive polling stations

RAWALPINDI: Police and security agencies remained on high alert throughout the Election Day to maintain law and order and ensure safety and security of the polling staff for holding free and fair polls.

CPO Rawalpindi Abbas Ahsan was personally instructing the police officers in field. Speaking to Daily Express CPO Ahsan said on polling day the Rawalpindi police is alert and polling process overall is going on peacefully, he also said that even at the time of conclusion of results, ECP code of conduct and SoPs will be strictly implemented.

CPO Ahsan gave a brief speech to senior officers and force members at police lines before visiting different polling stations and instructed the deployed personnel to vigilantly perform their national duty.

CPO on the polling day also visited the central control room in Rawalpindi police lines.



Police officials told Daily Express that owing to the sensitivity of the situation, police and security agencies had assumed designated responsibilities on Tuesday midnight.

Apart from installing close-circuit cameras in Category A and category B sensitive polling stations, three-layered security cordon was in place at polling stations. At least 8,300 personnel of district police, elite force and reserve police performed duties throughout the day.

Besides in Police Lines, seven sections of elite force with commandos and 15 sections of reserve police were on stand-by in case of emergency.



After the completion of polling, to ensure implementation on ECP code of conduct and SOPs, heavy police contingency on station level were kept alert at Murree Road, Peshawar Road and on important highways.

RPO Rawalpindi Fayyaz Deyo also visited various polling stations to oversee the security arrangements. He the huge deployment of 8,300 policemen was meant to ensure the security from polling process to submission of results. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2018.