Counting of votes begins at Pakistan polling stations
Islamabad, July 25 : Counting of votes began on Wednesday at various poll booths in Pakistan where polling was over, media reports said.
Even as the doors of polling stations closed at 6 p.m, voters present inside the booths were allowed to cast their votes.
Polling began at 8 a.m across the country's 85,307 polling stations and continued until 6 p.m despite calls by major parties, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), to extend the voting time by an hour.
The parties had complained of "slow voting process" and therefore had sought more time to facilitate voters, a request that was dismissed by the Election Commission (EC), Geo News reported.
The election campaign was marred by violence, with three candidates killed in targeted attacks and culminated with a suicide blast outside a polling station in Quetta which claimed at least 37 lives.
However, undeterred, a majority of Pakistan's nearly 106 million registered voters came out to cast their ballot, including women in areas where they previously stood disenfranchised due to various issues.
As many as 12,570 candidates contested for a total of 849 seats of national and provincial assemblies in the country's 11th General Election.
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UP: Misled by GPS navigation, car falls into river from partially constructed bridge, 3 dead
Bareilly (UP), Nov 24: Three people died when their car fell into the Ramganga river from a partially constructed bridge here on Sunday, police said, adding that they suspect the driver was misled by its navigation system into taking the unsafe route.
The accident occurred around 10 am on the Khalpur-Dataganj road when the victims were travelling from Bareilly to Dataganj in the Badaun district, they said.
"Earlier this year, floods had caused the front portion of the bridge to collapse into the river, but this change had not been updated in the system," Circle Officer Ashutosh Shivam said.
The driver was using a navigation system and did not realise that the bridge was unsafe, driving the car off the damaged section, the police said.
There were no safety barriers or warning signs on the approach to the damaged bridge, leading to the fatal accident, Shivam said.
Upon receiving information, police teams from Faridpur, Bareilly and Dataganj police station rushed to the spot. They recovered the vehicle and the bodies from the river, Shivam added.
The circle officer said that bodies had been sent for post-mortem. Further investigation into the matter is underway.
— Bareilly Police (@bareillypolice) November 24, 2024
