ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief General Raheel Sharif are leaving for a day-long visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today (Thursday) for serious negotiations pertaining to the situation in Yemen with King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and other royal leadership. It is a rare occasion that the civil and military leadership is visiting the kingdom together. Talks between the visiting delegation and the royal leadership will commence in the Al-Yamamah Palace immediately after their arrival in the Saudi capital Riyadh. It has been decided that Pakistan will provide troops to the Saudi kingdom once it was established that their security was under threat. The two sides will put their heads together to make an assessment of the situation in joint consultations before reaching some conclusion. Highly-placed sources told The News here on Wednesday evening that the sole purpose of the visit to the kingdom was to express unimpeachable solidarity with that country. The decision for the PM’s visit was taken in a high-level meeting held at the PM House on Wednesday that lasted for about three hours with the prime minister in the chair. Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif, federal ministers Senator Muhammadconstituency to provide security. Thebo informed the media that armoured vehicles would be deployed at sensitive polling stations. Authorities have set up a command and control room in the office of the deputy commissioner, Central, to monitor arrangements during the by-elections.The control room began functioning on Wednesday morning, a day before the highly-anticipated by-election takes place, and presiding officers had started arriving at the DC office for election material. Police and other officials will be present during the polling day at the control room, which has been equipped with wireless sets, dedicated phone lines and television sets for monitoring. A police official at the control room said a special hotline – 99260050 – has been set up where citizens can call to complain or inform officials about any irregularities that they notice during the election. Meanwhile, the ECP and Nadra’s ‘8300 SMS Service’ has been set up to help registered voters in NA-246 to check the status of their votes and particulars. Voters are able to send an SMS to 8300 and receive information about their block code, their registered voter number and polling station. A public holiday has been announced in Karachi’s District Central on Thursday to allow citizens to cast their votes.
