Islamabad: Pakistan has tightened security arrangements ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Pakistan is not showing any negligence regarding the security of this conference to be held on 15 and 16 October. The major cause of concern for Pakistan’s Shahbaz Sharif government is the recent terrorist attacks targeting Chinese citizens. On the other hand, people of Imran Khan’s party are also continuously protesting and are on the streets. Leaders like Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin are included in the summit. Pakistan has made strict security arrangements for the safety of the representatives of different countries who came to the summit. According to Dawn report, Pakistan has deployed more than 10,000 police and paramilitary forces to protect the 900 delegates in Islamabad. These include 6,643 police officers, 1,000 Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel, 2,000 Punjab Constabulary officers and 888 Rangers with the help of the Army are handling security.
661 motorcycles will patrol
661 officers will be on motorcycle duty for the security of the summit. Who will continuously patrol and take stock of the security. Apart from this, 72 control rooms have been created on 2,358 routes, 2,358 residences, 459 event venues, 222 officer high security areas and 37 officer parking areas. This arrangement has been made to prevent any ‘unpleasant incident’ during the summit.
The area in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, where this summit is being held, has been declared as Red Zone. The delegates have been accommodated at various locations in or around the ‘Red Zone’ of Islamabad. Officials have said that 124 vehicles have been kept in the convoy. Of these, 84 will be for heads of state and 40 for other representatives. Entry into the Red Zone has been restricted for the general public.
Government called the army
According to the notification of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, the army has been deployed using Article 245 of the Constitution. The notification states that the Army will oversee the security of key government buildings and Red Zones in Islamabad. Paramilitary Rangers are already deployed in the capital, the Army will take over security duties to further strengthen security during the summit.
The Pakistani government fears that terrorists may conspire to carry out some incident in the presence of foreign guests. In such a situation, there is special attention on security. The presence of international leaders at the summit has raised concerns about security. The preparations of the Pakistan government can be gauged from the fact that the authorities have declared a three-day public holiday from Monday in Islamabad and the neighboring city Rawalpindi.
Established in 2001, the objective of the SCO is to promote political, economic and security cooperation in the region. This includes Pakistan, China, India, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Apart from these, 16 countries are also associated as observers or ‘dialogue partners’.