SHC seeks details of police, Rangers strength required for LG polls duty.

KARACHI -- The Sindh High Court on Thursday expressed its displeasure over the delay by the authorities concerned in holding the local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad divisions and sought details about the strength of police and Rangers personnel required for security duty for the polling.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh directed the advocate general of Sindh to obtain complete information about total strength of police and Rangers in the province along with their current deployment.

The bench was hearing the petitions of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaat-i-Islami filed against postponement of the second phase of local government elections in Sindh.

In the previous hearing, the Election Commission of Pakistan had informed the SHC that a meeting had been scheduled for Nov 9 to fix a date for the repeatedly postponed LG elections in Karachi division.

Bench expresses displeasure over delay in holding elections

At the outset of the hearing on Thursday, the ECP informed the bench that such a meeting could not take place as a public holiday was declared on Nov 9, and the meeting had now been scheduled for Nov 15.

ECP's law officer Abdullah Hanjra further submitted that the LG elections in Karachi and Hyderabad divisions had not been held so far as the requisite security deployment was not being made available by the provincial government on the excuse that personnel were engaged in flood relief operations.

The bench asked the provincial authorities to explain the utility of police force in flood-affected areas and remarked that whether police had undertaken any operation for assistance of flood victims even in one disaster-hit village.

The bench also noted that in the last hearing, it had called reports from the inspector general of Sindh police as well as director general of Pakistan Rangers Sindh, but such reports had not been forthcoming as yet.

'Under such circumstances, the learned Advocate General, Sindh is directed to obtain the complete information as to the total strength of Police Personnel and Rangers Personnel in the Province alongwith their current deployment(s), as well as the number of such Personnel as can be assigned for duty in respect of the aforementioned Local Government Elections,' the bench said in its order.

The ECP submitted that it had also asked PTI chief Imran Khan, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, MQM-P's Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, JI's Karachi chief Hafiz...