Total of 56 terrorist incident were taken place on February 8 Election Day to sabotage the electoral process
Saba Noor
Caretaker Minister for Interior Dr.
Gohar Ejaz said on Friday that a total
of 56 terrorist incident were taken place on February 8 Election Day to
sabotage the electoral process.
Briefing media persons about the
overall security situation and challenges specifically regarding election day,
he said that the biggest challenge of the caretaker government was to provide
security to the people of the country on election day.
Sharing details of the casualties,
the minister informed that 3 military jawans, 2 levies jawans, 7 police
officials, 4 civilians including 2 minors lost their lives in the incidents.
The government had made a difficult
decision to shut down the mobile service across the country in a high-level
meeting on February 7 after the two deadliest terrorist incidents in which 28
innocent lives were lost, he added.
The minister said that the government
had received intelligence reports that the terrorist would carry out activities
in different places through detonated devices.
He congratulated the deployment of
hundreds of thousands of regular and civil armed forces, other law enforcement
agencies and civilian officials across the country for successful conduct of
the general elections.
Dr. Gohar said that 61 incidents of
violence were also reported across the country during elections adding, all the
incidents were being investigated in details and the action would be taken
against culprits.
He said that deaths of 28 people and
serious injuries to 64 others in terrorist incidents just one day prior to the
elections forced the state to take several measures for ensuring safety of the
citizens.
This also included the difficult
decision of suspending the mobile phone services across the country to disallow
terrorists the means to communicate, coordinate and conduct terrorist
operations, he added.
The minister said mobile devices were
also instrumental in initiating the trigger mechanisms for modern explosive
devices for mass casualties.
The government was fully aware that
suspension of mobile services would impact the transmission of election results
across the country and delay the process, however, the choice between this
delay and safety of the citizens was quite straightforward and the decision was
taken, he said.
Physical transportation of election
results from widely spread polling stations and especially in distant places in
Balochistan, KP and even in rural areas of Punjab and Sindh, with such
elaborate security measures was also a laborious and time consuming exercise,
he maintained.
The minister said even with such
stringent security measures in place, the election day saw 61 incidents of
violence including terrorist attacks employing sophisticated weapons and
explosive devices which consumed the lives of 16 citizens and caused injuries
to 54 others.
He said that all institutions
involved in this historic exercise, especially the Election Commision of
Pakistan which had little control of the security situation, deserved
acknowledgement and gratitude rather than criticism and denigration.
