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Pakistan Tightens Security for Local Polls After Five Die in Karachi
KARACHI, July 2 (News Agencies) - Security personnel were out in full force for municipal elections in Pakistan Monday, after pre-poll violence in the troubled city of Karachi left five people dead, officials said.
Thousands of army personnel, police and paramilitary forces were deployed to prevent trouble as Karachi's powerful ethnic-based party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), boycotted the polls.
"So far there has been no report of violence," Karachi police chief, Tariq Jamil, told the French news wire AFP, adding that more than 100 people had been detained as a preventative measure.
Residents said three children were injured in firecracker explosions, apparently designed to scare away voters in the port city.
Violence erupted here late Sunday when two people died and a dozen others were injured in a bomb blast in a movie theatre. Meanwhile, three people were killed by sniper fire, police and hospital officials said.
Witnesses said armed policemen were traveling with passengers on public transport to prevent mob attacks after two buses were torched in the overnight violence.
Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said MQM chief, Altaf Hussain, in a telephone call from his London exile, had given assurances that his supporters would not disturb the voting.
The local elections were being held in 30 selected districts of Pakistan…including Karachi, where ethnic, sectarian and political violence has claimed more than 4,000 lives in the past five years.
Some 20 million people were expected to cast their votes for 3,570 seats in 30 districts under the military government's promised transition to democracy.
The MQM, which swept the last council elections in Karachi in 1987, boycotted the polls over alleged gerrymandering of constituency boundaries and urged voters to stay indoors.
"We have decided to boycott the polls in Karachi because we don't think the military regime has a right to make changes in the constituencies," MQM deputy chief Nasreen Jalil said.
"The government has tried to divide the city on an ethnic basis through changes in the constituencies, which is not acceptable to us," she added.
The MQM represents Muslim migrants in Karachi who left India when the subcontinent was partitioned at the end of British rule in 1947.
Witnesses said voter turnout was low in central and eastern districts of Karachi, where several polling stations looked deserted. But, there were long queues of voters in the southern and western parts of the city.
Polling was also reported to be brisk at other places, including in the populous province of Punjab, the North West Frontier Province and southwestern Baluchistan.
In the northwestern city of Peshawar, several people were injured in scuffles between supporters of rival candidates over charges of irregularities at women-only polling stations.
Police arrested 11 people, officials said.
Around 72,000 candidates, including 12,000 women, are in the running, the election commission said. Voting was "peaceful" except for some minor incidents nationwide, it added.
The local council elections are being held in stages, the first step in President Pervez Musharraf's plan to decentralize power and establish a "genuine democracy" free of corruption and feudal authority.
The third round of voting was held on May 31, when at least six people were injured in a bomb blast in the northern city of Rawalpindi.
General Musharraf, who seized power in October 1999 coup, has promised that Pakistan will return to civilian rule through general elections by October of next year. He declared himself president last month.
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