islamabad - Over 500 cameras linked with the Safe City Project in the federal capital are out of order as the local police are taking every step to ensure safety and security of the voters on the polling day today (Wednesday).

According to the officials who spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity said that around 525 out of 1840 cameras are dysfunctional, limiting the scope of monitoring of the city through the project on the Election Day. Some of them are completely dysfunctional and few cannot move towards the desired direction, they said.

Majority of the dysfunctional cameras fall in the jurisdiction of Rural Zone and Bhara Kahu area. 

The cameras also lack face recognition features and the investigators have had to face difficulties in taking forward the probe especially in street crime and incidents of terrorism. Telecom Company, Huawei is responsible for maintenance of the system.

As far as cameras along the Express Highway are concerned, the officials said, they became dysfunctional during the widening of Expressway. The multi-billion project was aimed at 24/7 monitoring of the city through a sophisticated network of cameras connected to a control room.

Comprehensive security arrangements were ensured for the contesting political candidates during their election campaign. Islamabad Police provided elaborate security at 248 corner meetings, 272 public meetings and 245 other political gatherings while high alert security was ensured in the city after terrorism activities in Mastung, Bannu and Peshawar.

Effective checking was conducted at exit and entry points of the city and no untoward incident happened in the city during the campaign.

Meanwhile, Islamabad police have devised a comprehensive security plan for Islamabad on the Election Day and 7014 security personnel would perform security duties to ensure conducive environment for the voters. IG Islamabad police chaired a high-level meeting here on Tuesday to discuss the security arrangements.

According to the Islamabad Police Spokesman, 7014 security personnel including officials from Islamabad police, FC, Islamabad Traffic Police and Lady Police would perform duties on the day. All police stations have been divided into four zones, 11 sectors as well as 21 sub-sectors.

The security in each zone would be supervised by SP while ASP/DSP and official of Inspector rank would be responsible for duties in each sector and sub-sector respectively.

 Eleven senior police officials of Islamabad police would conduct security checking while IGP Islamabad would monitor all the duties himself.

Special cards have been issued to the security personnel performing their duties. Out of 786 polling stations in three constituencies i.e. NA-52, NA-53 and NA-54 of Islamabad, 26 polling stations have been declared as ‘highly sensitive’ and 87 as ‘sensitive’ while remaining 673 polling stations have been declared ‘normal’ as per security perspective.

A Control room has been set up in Safe City while three wireless control rooms have been established.  In addition, 33 vehicles and 44 motorbikes have been assigned patrolling duties in the city.

A total of 33 Quick Response Teams have been constituted which would remain Stand-by along with Zonal Commander and Sector Commander. Seventy additional police pickets have been erected to ensure effective checking in the city.

As many as 471 policemen from ITP including SSP (Traffic), SP (Traffic) and five DSPs would perform duties to ensure smooth flow of traffic in the city.

Parking lots would be made 200 ft away from the polling stations.

While chairing the meeting, IGP Islamabad said that it is the responsibility of each police official to ensure protection to the contesting candidates, voters and polling staff. He directed to fulfil this task in a responsible manner and clarified that sluggish attitude or laxity would not be tolerated in this regard. The IGP has directed the security personnel to ensure lawful cooperation with election staff and perform their duties in an impartial and unbiased manner.

He said that all police officials should brief their subordinate staff about nature of duty before sending them to the site and to check their presence themselves besides maintaining complete coordination among security staff.