According to sources from the Ministry of Home Affairs, approximately 79,000 personnel from the Nepal Army, 72,000 personnel from the Nepal Police, 33,000 personnel from the Armed Police Force, and 130,000 personnel from the temporary police will be mobilized for election security.
What you should know
The government is set to mobilize around 3.25 lakh security personnel for the upcoming House of Representatives elections. A committee meeting chaired by Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal has decided to mobilize around 314,000 security personnel for the elections scheduled for 21 Falgun. Around 130,000 temporary police officers will be recruited for this purpose.
According to a Home Ministry source, about 79,000 Nepali Army personnel, about 72,000 Nepal Police personnel, 33,000 Armed Police personnel and 130,000 temporary police personnel will be mobilized for election security.
The Home Ministry has stated that the election security action plan has been approved to deploy around 3.25 lakh personnel after the Election Commission finalizes the voter list, polling stations and polling stations.
Anand Kafle, spokesperson for the Home Ministry, informed that the upcoming election security plan has been formulated based on the 2079 House of Representatives elections and changing challenges. The Security Committee meeting on Sunday approved the ‘Integrated Security Plan-2082’ for the election and decided to mobilize the Army, Police, Armed Police Force, National Investigation Department and Temporary Police. With the approval of the security action plan by the Security Committee, the National Security Council will now have to recommend to the Council of Ministers for the mobilization of the army. The President must approve the mobilization of the army after obtaining a decision from the Council of Ministers on the recommendation of the National Security Council chaired by the Prime Minister.
With the approval of the integrated action plan, security personnel will be mobilized from 10 Mangsir with the aim of the election. Single and joint mechanisms of all four security agencies were formed to prepare the election security plan, and the Central Security Committee meeting on 9 Asoj had formed an integrated election security plan task force under the coordination of Home Spokesperson Kafle.
The police, armed forces and the National Investigation Department, led by the Assistant Lieutenant General of the Army, submitted a blueprint for security and necessary arrangements, which was submitted to the mechanism led by Joint Secretary Kafle. The same integrated blueprint was presented in the Central Security Committee meeting and approved after discussion and review on Sunday.
The weapons/ammunition looted from the police in the 24 Bhadra protest, prisoners who escaped from jail have been kept as the main security challenges for the election, while the accusations and counter-accusations between the election party and the party demanding the restoration of the House of Representatives, party workers and Gen-G supporters and the situation that this may lead to, etc. have been included as security challenges for the election. The risk of clashes and clashes between political party leaders and activists who suffered physical damage during the Gen-G movement and supporters of the Gen-G movement has also been pointed out as a security challenge.
After the insecurity created by the weapons looted and escaped prisoners during the Gen-G movement, the army, police and armed forces have been conducting joint security patrols across the country for the past one month. In the elections as well, in the same modality, joint and single patrols will be conducted as needed and according to the security action plan, the security agencies will be deployed in three categories as highly sensitive, sensitive and normal, according to the home ministry official.
Currently, about one lakh security personnel are working in the army, about 80 thousand in the police and about 37 thousand in the armed forces. The approved security action plan states that all security personnel, except for essential and office security, will be deployed for election security. On 24 Bhadra, vandalism, arson and looting took place in government/public and private properties. During that time, 14,043 prisoners who were in police custody during criminal investigations and 28 prisons and juvenile correctional homes across the country escaped.
