Many candidates in North Waziristan “hired” services of “security guards” who “looked like Taliban” on the polling day, eyewitnesses and officials said.“They had long beard and hair and dressed like the Taliban. But they were not really Taliban men who generally fight the Pakistani security forces in Tribal Areas or the US forces in Afghanistan,” the eyewitnesses said, wishing not to be named. However, it was unclear who the highly armed men were, if not the Taliban. A senior official in the agency said he saw armed men with a Taliban outlook roaming around. “These people were carrying heavy weapons like rocket-propelled grenades to protect candidates,” he said.