PEAHAWAR – Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province has set up Joint CrisisManagement Units (JCMU) to protect politicians, after a spate of terrorattacks killed nearly 150 people including 2 top political leaders ahead ofthe general elections in the country, a media report said today.
The National Counter Terrorism Authority has warned that some toppoliticians, including Pakistanlink>Tehreek-e-Insafchief Imran Khan, can be attacked by terrorists during the campaign for thegeneral elections, scheduled for July 25.
The decision to set up JCMUs was taken on Saturday during a securitylink>coordinationmeeting here following a wave of deadly terror attacks targeting electionrallies in Pakistan.
“The JCMUs established at districts levels will serve as nerve centres forcollecting intelligence reports, ensure security arrangements before andafter election campaigns and at the same time generate coordinated responsein case of any untoward incident,” The Express Tribune said, citing acommunique between the home ministry and police department.
The communique read that not only the units at district levels, butsub-command posts of these units should be established at different partsof district in order to reduce the response time in case of emergency, thepaper said.
“JCMU must have representatives from local armed forces’ formation, police,levy, civil administration besides relief department [health, Rescue1122],” it said, adding that all representatives must hold coordinationmeeting immediately and review the situation regularly.
The communique also read that politicians should be served securityadvisory before holding their corner meetings and that the advisory shouldbe served on the politicians (under threat) in person besides thecompliance thereof should be ensured, the paper said.
The JCMU representatives have been told that it should be ensured that allpoliticians nominate one representative for security aspect of electioncampaign adding that such representatives should be in close liaison withlocal police, civil administration throughout the campaign coordinatingsecurity of the candidate and place of political gatherings.
It said that besides local police and other law enforcing agencies,politicians should also employee local representatives of their ownpolitical party to improve the security for entry and exit points of thepolitical gathering, the paper said.
It stated that security of the candidates and leaders under threat shouldbe enhanced immediately including involving the politicians’ private guardsallowing them with permit of carrying weapons of prohibited bores.
Contact should be established with all prayer leaders and management ofreligious seminaries for keeping record of the visitors, it said, addingthat the civil administration should remain in close coordination with suchinstitutions to monitor the situation in order to deny any space to themilitants.