Islamabad, Jan 16 (PTI) Pakistan plans to deploy thousands of security personnel to maintain peace during the next month's general elections amidst deteriorating security situation primarily due to attacks by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

Officials said that police, paramilitary Rangers and army troops would be deployed to maintain security.

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"The deployment would start at the beginning of February," a security official told PTI.

The exact number of the security forces required for deployment was being worked out in the light of the threat perception.

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The Pakistan Army has already announced its full support to the Election Commission for holding the election in a peaceful environment.

The ECP has established 92,353 polling stations across the country for general elections and 51,047 have been declared as sensitive or highly sensitive (30,441 sensitive and 20,606 are highly sensitive).

A polling station is labelled as sensitive if there was a chance of attack by militants or other types of violence, requiring proper deployment of security forces.

Already incidents of violence have hit the elections and last week an independent candidate running for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly was killed alongside two aides when his car came under gunfire attack.

At least three resolutions were floated in the Senate, seeking to delay the election due to increasing terrorist attacks in the country. One of them passed while the others are still pending.

Pakistan's law and order situation began to worsen in the wake of the Afghan Taliban coming to power in 2021. Pakistan alleged that the interim Afghan government has failed to control the TTP operatives who use the Afghan soil to launch the cross border attacks.

According to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies, last year casualties due to terrorist attacks hit a six-year high with more than 1,500 civilians, security forces and militants killed.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)