Voting begins for Pakistan general elections; mobile services temporarily suspended

Islamabad: Polling for Pakistan general elections began on Thursday at 90,000 polling stations across the country amid tight security. The polling began at around 8:00 a.m and will end at 5 p.m. Minutes before the polling began, mobile internet services were temporarily suspended across the country, Dawn reported.

“The step has been taken due to recent surge in terrorist activities,” the country’s interior ministry said, Islamabad police said security is in place and polling stations are being manned since Wednesday morning. Polling for the four provincial assemblies is being held on the same day.

Over 128 million people, or more than half of the country’s total population, are eligible to vote in the general elections. Elections were to be held for 266 seats in the lower house, but the elections for one of the seats had been postponed due to the death of a candidate, according to the ECP. Yesterday, around 26 people were killed and more than 40 sustained injuries in two separate explosions that took place in an election office of an independent candidate in Balochistan.

The explosions took place in Pishin district of Balochistan and the second one outside the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl office in Killa Saifullah, a town near the Afghan border. All the wounded persons were immediately rescued and shifted to a nearby hospital for medical aid.