Bombings in Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar mar Pakistan elections

by Rezaul H Laskar/ PTI Islamabad/Karachi: Polling in Pakistan’s landmark general election was today marred by a string of bomb blasts in Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar that killed at least 15 people and injured many other. Thirteen people were killed and over 40 others injured in three bomb attacks in the southern port city of Karachi. The first blast went off near the election office of Amanullah Mehsud, an Awami National Party candidate contesting polls to the Sindh Assembly. Mehsud escaped unhurt though several ANP workers were among the dead and injured. The second blast went off minutes later near a polling station and an ANP office in the same area as rescue teams were busy rushing the victims of the first attack to hospital. [caption id=“attachment_773073” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A Pakistani man comforts a family member next to the body of their relative who was killed in a bomb blast near a polling station on election day, at a hospital morgue in Karachi. AP[/caption] The second blast triggered a stampede at the polling station and disrupted voting. Two persons were killed and several injured when a bus was targeted by the third blast at Qasba Colony in Karachi. Two policemen were killed and four others injured in an explosion at Toorghar in Peshawar. In Peshawar, a bomb attached to a motorcycle went off outside a women’s polling station, injuring eight persons. Five persons were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest after he was intercepted by police outside another polling station in a suburb of Peshawar. Several persons were injured in a blast in Quetta, the capital of the restive southwestern province of Balochistan. No group claimed responsibility for the attacks though the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has repeatedly targeted the ANP and other secular-leaning parties like the  Pakistan Peoples Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement during the campaign period. Several ANP and MQM members, including candidates, were killed in Taliban attacks. Days before the polls, the Taliban threatened it would carry out attacks, including suicide bombings, on election day. The threat heightened concerns about security for the polls, which mark the first democratic transition of power in Pakistan’s history. PTI