Pakistan: Government to deploy Rangers in Islamabad red zone ahead of SCO summit

Islamabad [Pakistan], October 4 (ANI): The federal government has decided to deploy Rangers in Islamabad's Red Zone for enhanced security measures ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, scheduled to take place in October, citing sources ARY News reported on Thursday.
This move is aimed at maintaining law and order in the area, particularly in light of the upcoming SCO summit scheduled for October 15-16, 2024.
Paramilitary rangers will be deployed in the capital city until the conclusion of the upcoming SCO summit.
According to sources, the Rangers personnel will be stationed outside key government buildings and along internal roads within the Red Zone.
A security plan for the upcoming SCO summit was approved on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by the interior minister Mohsin Naqvi.
Meanwhile, India also confirmed that they have received an invitation from Pakistan for the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) in-person meeting that it will host in October this year.
In August, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, while addressing a weekly media briefing, confirmed the invitation by Islamabad and noted that the MEA has no update to share.
Responding to a question at the briefing, Jaiswal said, "Yes, we have received an invitation from Pakistan for the Council of Heads of State Government meeting (SCO meeting) that is to happen. We don't have an update on that. We will let you know what the situation is later."
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation established on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai by Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Its predecessor was the mechanism of the Shanghai Five. Currently, the SCO countries include nine member states: India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The SCO has three observer states: Afghanistan, Mongolia and Belarus.
At the Samarkand SCO Summit in 2022, the process of raising the status of the Republic of Belarus within the Organisation to the level of a member state started.
The SCO has 14 dialogue partners: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Sri Lanka. (ANI)