Poll candidate injured in suicide blast in northwest Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A suicide bomber injured a candidate from the party of cricketer-turnedpolitician Imran Khan and killed his driver in an attack in northwest Pakistan yesterday, police said, three days before the country’s general election.

Five others were also injured in the blast in the city of Dera Ismail Khan and have been rushed to hospital, local police official Kamal Shah said.

“A suicide bomber blew himself up near the vehicle of Ikramullah Gandapur as he left his house for election campaign,” district police chief Zaheer Afridi told AFP.

“Gandapur was injured along with five others while his driver died on the spot,” he added.

Video footage showed the driver on the seat of Gandapur’s black Land Cruiser as his armed guards rushed to save the injured.

The attack followed a suicide blast in the southwestern province of Balochistan on July 13 which killed 149 people, underscoring continuing security challenges in Pakistan following years of dramatic improvements.

Violence in Pakistan has dropped significantly since the country’s deadliest-ever militant attack, an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children.

Pakistan’s military intensified operations against militants in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan in the wake of that attack, leading to improved security. — Reuters