Pakistan sends 14,000 cops to PoK ahead of elections

Pakistan’s Punjab province has sent 14,000 police personnel, 30 per cent of them carrying weapons, to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for security duty ahead of elections in the region, an official said Sunday.

Elections for 45 contesting seats of the so-called legislative assembly of PoK are to be held in three phases from Monday to August 10.

India maintains that the entire Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are integral and inalienable parts of it. New Delhi also asserts that Pakistan has been in “illegal and forcible occupation” of parts of these Union Territories.

“The Punjab government has sent 14,000 personnel of Punjab policemen for Kashmir poll security duty on the request of the Kashmir Government,” a Government official told PTI.

Of these, 30 per cent are carrying weapons, and 70 per cent are equipped with anti-riot equipment, he said.

On July 21, PoK’s Election Commissioner Ghulam Mustafa Mughal said that polling in 13 constituencies of Mirpur division will be held on July 27, nine constituencies of Muzaffarabad division and all 12 refugee constituencies on August 2, and 11 constituencies of Poonch division on August 10.

There are 53 seats in the so-called legislative assembly of PoK - 45 are directly elected, while eight seats are reserved for women, technocrats and clerics.

The additional force deployment was needed as the PoK region saw unprecedented violence following widespread protests by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) that lasted for nearly two months. The JAAC’s main demand was the abolition of the 12 refugee seats.

Dozens of people, including security men, were killed in the violence, following which the Government last month banned the JAAC.

India on July 14 had described the protests in PoK as a “direct consequence” of Islamabad’s decades-long “systemic exploitation and administrative oppression” in areas under its “forcible” occupation and criticised reported police brutality on the protesters.

In the PoK polls, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is contesting against the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which is its coalition partner in the federal Government. Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has boycotted these polls.