Security to cost national kitty a whopping Rs1.19b

Around 130,000 officials will be deployed on polling day

LAHORE:

Following a re-evaluation of security arrangements three weeks ahead of the General Elections 2024, the Punjab Police has estimated a budget of Rs1.19 billion.

As many as 14,072 polling stations have been marked sensitive and 30,000 normal after the fresh survey on Friday. Punjab Police will deploy over 130,000 personnel to maintain security and order during the elections. Out of the aforementioned total, around Rs660 million will be spent on food and procuring security equipment.

To monitor the law and order situation across the province, a control room headed by AIG Operations Punjab has been set up and over 15 data operators are operational in the control room at the IG office. Inspector-level officers have been appointed as focal persons, who will submit reports on a regular basis.

According to the Punjab Police, they needed 130,000 personnel to ensure the security of the upcoming elections. With the district police and reserve forces included, the department still lacked 23,000 officials.

AIG Operations Punjab has considered fulfilling the shortage of the contingent from Police Training Schools, Colleges, Traffic Police and Special Protection Unit (SPU).

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Additionally, as many 9,000 officials will be taken from Punjab Highway Patrol (PHP), 6,000 from the Punjab Constabulary, 4,000 from the traffic police, 3,000 from the Special Protection Unit (SPU) and 1,000 from traffic colleges and schools.

These officers will be deployed at the nearest district and the heads of the aforementioned units will submit details to IG office within a week.

To materialize election security arrangements on ground level in Lahore, an important meeting of senior police officers was convened at the CCPO office on Friday, chaired by Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore Bilal Siddique Kamyana. The meeting thoroughly reviewed security measures for the upcoming General Elections and SP (Security) provided a detailed overview of the security plan.

CCPO Lahore directed the relevant officers to formulate a comprehensive security plan and assured full support to the Election Commission, district administration and other institutions to guarantee peaceful electoral proceedings. Discussions during the meeting encompassed various issues related to the security plan for polling stations, polling campuses, returning officers and district returning officers' offices in the provincial metropolis.

Effective monitoring through control rooms would allow police to enforce the ban on aerial firing, displaying weapons and the misuse of loudspeakers under Section 144.

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CCPO Lahore affirmed that stringent legal action would be taken over any violation of the election code of conduct, particularly emphasizing zero tolerance for the display of weapons and aerial firing.

Addressing security concerns, CCPO Kamyana ordered the timely installation of CCTV cameras, barriers, barbed wire, metal detectors, walk-through gates and ladies' search cabins in and around polling stations. He highlighted the importance of effective patrolling by the Dolphin Force teams on Election Day and called for the deployment of traffic police to ensure the convenience of the public.

DIG (Operations) Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, DIG (Investigation) Imran Kishor, DIG (Security) Kamran Adil, SSP (Admin) Atif Nazir, SSP (Operations) Syed Ali Raza and SP (Security) Akhlaqullah Tarar were present at the meeting. Earlier this week, a meeting was chaired by DIG Operations Ali Nasir Rizvi and attended by all divisional SPs.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2024.