A SUICIDE bomber on a motorcycle has rammed into people waiting outside a busy polling station in the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing at least 31 and casting a dark shadow over election day.
The attack in the capital of Baluchistan province underlined the difficulties the majority Muslim nation faces as it casts ballots to elect its third consecutive civilian government.
The bombing also wounded 35 people, with several reported to be in a critical condition.
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A witness to the attack in Quetta, Abdul Haleem, who was waiting to cast his ballot, said he saw a motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters just seconds before the explosion. Haleem’s uncle was killed in the blast.
“There was a deafening bang followed by thick cloud of smoke and dust and so much crying from the wounded people,” he said.
Officials were quick to blame Daesh, who later claimed responsibility for that attack. Baluchistan has seen relentless assaults, both by the province’s secessionists and Sunni militants who have killed hundreds of Shias living there.
Baluchistan also saw the worst violence during election campaigning earlier this month, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally, killing 149 people, including the candidate Siraj Raisani. Another 400 were wounded. Voting in that constituency has been suspended.
In recent years, the Daesh affiliate in the region has emerged as a major force behind violence, often using local Sunni radicals from the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to carry out its attacks.
Yesterday, militants lobbed grenades and opened fire at a military convoy escorting election staffers and voting material in Baluchistan’s district of Turbat, killing four troops.
Earlier today shooting between supporters of two opposing political parties killed one person and wounded two in a village near the north-western city of Swabi. Later, more clashes between rival political parties killed another person and wounded 15 elsewhere in the country.
Polls have now closed, with former cricket star Imran Khan and his right-of-centre Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI) and the right-of-centre Pakistan Muslim League, the party of disgraced prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the leading contenders.
Sharif is in jail serving 10 years on corruption charges and his younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, has taken control of the party.
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The third-largest party in the running is the left-leaning Pakistan People’s Party, headed by Bilawal Bhutto.
He is the son of late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, assassinated by Pakistan’s Taliban militants, whom she had vowed to eradicate.
Rights groups have warned that a rancorous election campaign and widespread allegations of manipulation imperil the wobbly transition to democratic rule and raise the spectre of bitter post-election challenges of fraud.
The unprecedented participation of radical religious groups, including those banned for terrorist links but resurrected and renamed, has also raised fears the space for moderate thought may shrink further in Pakistan.
Attacks against minorities have increased in recent years.
One candidate, Jibran Nasir, an independent from Pakistan’s financial hub of Karachi, received death threats and even had a fatwa – a religious edict – issued against him.
He had refused to condemn Ahmadis, who are reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe the messiah promised in Islam arrived over a century ago.
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