Taking part in the deliberation that continued till late Monday evening, the regional heads have, however, urged the government to take the political parties into consensus to deploy the army.
In the meeting organized by the Ministry of Home Affairs at the Police Headquarters, they also opined that hiring temporary police personnel (Myadi Prahari) would not be a good idea. [break]
According to a Chief of Regional Police, they are of the view that deploying Nepal Army on the perimeter of the voting stations in co-ordination with the Nepal police and Armed Police Force was the need of the hour.
Most of the speakers were also worried about the delay in chalking out the security plan for the election as it has slowed down the preparations for the crucial polls, he said.
The government has not been able to finalize the election security plan as the major parties have yet to agree on the deployment of the security forces for the polls.
The Home Ministry has planned to finalize the security plan only after the political parties represented on the High Level Political Committee (HLPC) arrive at a consensus on either to deploy NA personnel, a highly placed police officer said.
According to him most of the speakers were worried about the recruitment of Myadi police for as they were largely found to be political cadres working in the interests of certain political parties in the previous CA polls.
Nepal Police and APF have a total strength of 67,000 and 36,000, personnel respectively. Only about 60 to 70 percent of the total strength can be deployed during the polls. In the first CA election, the government had recruited around 70,000 temporary police personnel.
The meeting also focused on security threats posed by various political and non- political parties, underground armed outfits and semi-underground groups as well as other illegal and criminals groups.
Mohan Baidya-led CPN-Maoist and Tarai-based armed groups are the major challenges, according to the speakers in the meeting.
DIG Rajendra Singh Bhandari, Mid-western Regional Police head, said, “We evaluated the entire security challenges and urged the government to formulate the security plan accordingly.”
He added, “This is just a beginning and we will continue appraising the government on the evolving security situation.”
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