Interior Minister Malik Habib Khan on Tuesday clarified that he had no affiliation with any political party and challenged the critics to provide evidence to the contrary.
The interior minister said he respected the entire political leadership of the country and his prime responsibility as an interior minister was to provide security to all the leaders.
He said Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan would also be provided security to avert any unpleasant incident.
Speaking on the occasion, Additional Secretary ECP Muhammad Afzal Khan said that electronic and print media organisations should install maximum number of cameras at polling stations to point out shortcomings, if any.
He said media should not compromise on national interest, intentionally or unintentionally, just to lead in breaking news.
He said it was almost impossible to cast bogus votes in the elections.
The interior minister added that maintenance of law and order to ensure free and peaceful elections was his prime responsibility which would be fulfilled at all costs.
Talking to journalists after chairing a meeting, the minister said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was supervising security arrangements for transparent elections.
Malik Habib said two meetings had already been held on security issues with provincial governments and ICT administration.
“Our prime responsibility is to provide stringent security to the political leaders,” the interior minister added.
To a question, he said that today’s meeting focused on examining the security arrangements in the federal capital, adding that there were 24 sensitive polling stations in Islamabad.
Malik Habib said the ECP would decide whether or not to deploy army personnel on sensitive polling stations in the federal capital.
The additional secretary stressed for administrative changes in all the provinces and called for keeping away officers with a bad reputation.
He said the neutrality of the caretaker government was inevitable to ensure free and transparent elections in the country.
“Election Commission is not acting upon anyone’s dictations nor would it do so in the future,” Afzal Khan added.
