The Government of Pakistan has suspended mobile phone services across the country to “maintain the law and order situation” in a General Election preceded by an increase in militant violence.
“As a result of the recent incidents of terrorism in the country, precious lives have been lost, therefore security measures are essential to maintain the law and order situation and deal with potential threats. It has been decided to suspend mobile services across the country temporarily,” the Ministry of Interior said in a message on X (formerly Twitter).
Since early morning today, people have reported service disruption in major cities and districts across Pakistan, with high impact to the country’s second-largest operator Zong, corroborating widespread user reports of outages.
⚠ Confirmed: Live network data show a disruption to mobile internet in #Pakistan with high impact to second-largest operator Zong, corroborating widespread user reports of outages; the incident comes as polls open on election day 📵 #PakistanElection2024 pic.twitter.com/XWIyU1BKvO
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) February 8, 2024
Meanwhile, the Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja told reporters earlier today that the service disruption will not affect the voting system, even though millions of voters check their constituency using the 8300 helpline, which is currently inaccessible owing to the outage. “This is beyond the election commission,” the commissioner said, adding that it is the decision of law and order agencies.
“The ECP can only give recommendations but in my view should avoid interfering in the matter,” he added.
Unofficial results from the election are expected a few hours after voting closes at 5 PM today, with confirmations expected the next day.
The country is on high alert at the moment, with thousands of army and paramilitary personnel deployed across polling stations.
Earlier, Pakistan decided to close border crossings with Afghanistan and Iran, both for cargo and pedestrians today. Normal operations are expected to resume on 9 February 2024 (tomorrow).
Citizen safety is defender’s priority