Former PM Sharif in custody
132 dead as violence escalates before Pakistan elections
LAHORE: Disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in custody, a day after the deadliest attacks in Pakistan’s troubled election campaign killed more than 130 people, including a candidate.
In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a suicide bomber killed 128 people on Friday, including a politician running for a provincial legislature. Four others died in a strike in Pakistan’s northwest, spreading panic in the country.
The attacks came hours before Sharif returned from London along with his daughter Maryam to face a 10year prison sentence on corruption charges, anticorruption officials said. Maryam faces seven years in jail.
He was taken into custody to serve his sentence however he is expected to appeal and seek bail. It wasn’t clear when his appeal would be filed but he has until today).
In the southern town of Mastung, candidate Siraj Raisani and 127 others died when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid scores of supporters who had gathered at a rally.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried on its Aamaq news agency.
The group gave no reason for the bombing that killed Raisani, who was running for the election on the Baluchistan Awami Party ticket.
Raisani is the brother of the former Baluchistan chief minister, Aslam Raisani. Caretaker Home Minister Agha Umar Bungalzai said another 300 people were wounded in Friday’s bombing.
The US State Department in a statement strongly condemned this week’s attacks on political candidates and their supporters in Pakistan.
“These attacks are cowardly attempts to deprive the Pakistani people of their democratic rights,” it said.
“We will continue to stand with the people of Pakistan and the broader South Asia region in their fight against terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Sharif arrived in the eastern city of Lahore from London where he was visiting his ailing wife when a Pakistani court convicted him and his daughter of corruption.
Sharif ’s soninlaw is currently serving his oneyear prison sentence on the same charge, which stems from the purchase of luxury apartments in Britain that the court said were bought with illegally acquired money.
Ahead of his return, police swept through Lahore, arresting scores of Sharif ’s Pakistan Muslim League party workers to prevent them from greeting him at the airport.
Barbed wire was strung across some roads leading to the Lahore airport on Friday and barricades were positioned at the roadside ready to close off main boulevards should crowds start to gather.
In a video message on Friday reportedly from aboard his aircraft en route to Pakistan, Sharif said he was returning knowing he would be taken directly to prison.
Sharif has been banned from participating in politics, and his brother Shahbaz Sharif now heads his Pakistan Muslim League and is campaigning for reelection on July 25.
In a televised appeal to supporters from London earlier this week, Sharif said he was not afraid of prison and asked people to vote for his party.
He also used the opportunity to again criticise Pakistan’s powerful military, which has ruled the country directly or indirectly for most of its 71year history, saying Pakistan now has a “state above the state.”
During his term in office, Sharif criticised the military’s involvement in civilian affairs and its efforts in fighting extremists.
Pakistani and international rights groups have accused the military of seeking to maintain its influence in Pakistani politics by keeping Sharif out of power.