LAHORE: The unexpected suspension of internet and mobile services on Election Day not only invited sharp criticism from almost all the political parties contesting the polls but also deprived several eligible voters of using their right of franchise.
The voters were unaware of the polling stations and were found running from pillar to post.
Muhammad Aleem, a voter in NA-130, told this scribe that his family comprises six members; three voters were at one polling station at the Chief Engineer’s Office at Lake Road, while the other three votes could not be traced out. He added that shifting three votes in one family was a big question mark. He said that with the stoppage of internet service, his three members could not cast their votes. He claimed that many other families were complaining of this discrepancy.
PTI Information Secretary Raoof Hasan stated that the internet outage “will impede the work that our activists are doing on the ground to get people to the polling stations.” He said: “The physical space given to us has been completely cut out, so we depend on connectivity through the net.”
The PML-N senior leader, Khawaja Saad Rafique, also resented the internet outage and said the voters are having difficulty searching their polling station.
On the other hand, Amnesty International has called the suspension of mobile and internet services “a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
“It is reckless to impede access to information as people head out to polling stations on the heels of devastating bomb blasts and what has been an intense crackdown on the opposition in the lead-up to the elections in the country,” Amnesty International’s South Asia office said in a statement. “Unwarranted restrictions on the dissemination of information, despite reassurances to the contrary from the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority and Election Commission of Pakistan, are in breach of people’s human rights at this critical time in Pakistan.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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