Islamabad: Pakistan army personnel are likely to join the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to verify 6.8 million voters in Karachi from the first week of January 2013.
The move came after various political parties complained that some three million people settled in Karachi for years have been enrolled at their permanent addresses without their consent.
The exercise would be finalised at a Thursday meeting that will be headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, ECP’s Secretary Ishtiak Ahmad Khan told Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily.
But an unnamed military official told the newspaper that army had not received any request from the ECP thus far.
Earlier on December 5, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered the ECP in its judgment on identical petitions filed by various political parties to re-conduct door-to-door verification of the electoral rolls.
“In view of the peculiar security situation in Karachi, such verification must be carried out by the Election Commission with the help and assistance of Pakistan Army and the FC,” wrote Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, a member of the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry that had reserved its ruling on the subject on November 28.
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