The 3rd and last phase of the Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) Local Bodies elections was completed after a heavy turnout of the voters who were using their right of franchise to elect their representatives to the civic bodies witnessed in all three districts of Mirpur Division including Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimbher on Thursday.
Polling to the elections was held mostly in an absolutely free, fair and peaceful manner completing the entire phased local bodies elections process in Azad Jammu Kashmir. Soon after the completion of the polling process, counting of the votes has been started by the presiding officers at all the polling stations for onward submission to the returning officers of the concerned wards of the civic bodies, according to the AJK Election Commission sources told APP when contacted here Thursday evening. All three districts of Mirpur division including Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimbher districts, an attractive chunk of a total of 12 lakh, 32 thousand and 79 registered voters moved to exercise their right of vote to elect the local bodies representatives of their respective choice in the 3rd and final phase of the polls – right from the beginning of the polling at 8.00 in the morning which continued till the stipulated time of 5.00 pm on Thursday.
The registered voters included 5,63,016 in Kotli district, 36, 6043 in Mirpur district and 30, 3020 registered voters in Bhimbher district. A total of 1026 polling stations were set up in Kotli district, 625 in Mirpur district and 538 in Bhimbher district respectively with 1602, 924, and 850 polling booths in the three above districts respectively to facilitate both male and female registered voters to use their right of vote to elect their civic bodies members.
A total of 10500 civil armed forces troops including 4400 AJK police COPs, 1910 Punjab police constables,, 3000 Frontier Constabulary (FC) jawans, 1200 Pakistan Rangers personnel were deputed on special duty at a total of 2188 polling stations set up in all three districts of Mirpur division. Among the total polling stations 874 were declared extremely sensitive, 803 sensitive and 511 normal – separately for both genders – the registered male and female voters. In order to ensure the holding of the polling in absolutely free, fair and peaceful environment, Mirpur division was divided into 21 zones comprising 234 sector SSPs and SPs headed each zone with the fully alerted armed COPs.
A Central Control Room at Mirpur Divisional HQ was set up to monitor whole of the law and order situation during polling on all three districts of Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimbher. The District level Control Rooms in all three districts were aksi established in all three district to monitor the law and order situation during polling process and later on. A special high level AJK Police Monitoring team headed by Additional IGP was deputed to monitor the entire law and order situation during the electoral process simultaneously in all three districts of Mirpur division.
