PESHAWAR, Feb 17: Resourceful candidates have hired services of women smugglers for casting bogus votes and other election related activities, it is learnt.

Sources said that small-time women smugglers and those in the flesh trade were in great demand because of their expertise in polling bogus votes.

“They have hired my services about a month ago. Being an expert in the field I have been paid Rs6,000 for a single day,” said a woman who normally earns her livelihood by smuggling cloth and sometime drugs.

She told Dawn that another woman of her locality in Tehkal area would receive Rs60,000 as she would supervise a complete polling camp of a political party in NA-1 constituency. She added that the said woman would also arrange other females for polling bogus votes.

The woman, who is about 40, on promise of not disclosing her name told Dawn that she had also participated in the 2002 and 1997 polls and had cast around 20 votes with different names.

Activist of a political party, who normally looks after such illegal practices on the elections day, said that normally they used to take a batch of women to a polling station and after casting bogus votes there they used to transport them to another station.

“We took a sigh of relief when the Election Commission announced that the old national identity cards could also be used for casting votes. Our candidates are having large number of fake cards which we have been using in different polls,” he added.

He said that they had also retained identity cards of scores of poor women in return of some money and after elections those cards would be returned to them.

Apart from the polling day activities, he added, those women and other females engaged in labour were hired for door-to-door distribution of pamphlets and leaflets of candidates.

Another woman informed this scribe that she knew how to hoodwink the polling staff. “Sometime I wear a burqa and next time I replace it with a shawl. We often change our getup including hair style to cheat the officials and polling agents of rival groups,” she added.

“I am not affiliated with any political party. My party is the one which pays me more for my job,” she said.

About the mark of indelible ink on thumb, she said that they were provided special solution which helped them in erasing the mark. She added that they also put some Vaseline on the cuticle of the thumb which helped them to easily remove the ink mark.

She said that an ordinary impersonator received up to Rs3,000 from a candidate for the polling day whereas the rates of experts and supervising women were much higher. She said that services of women belonging to different age groups were hired by candidates to cast bogus votes.