Pakistan candidate killed in suicide attack
Imran Khan condemns killing of party member as violence escalates in run-up to general election
AN ELECTION candidate for Imran Khan’s party was killed in a suicide bombing yesterday, three days before polling in Pakistan.
Ikram Gandapur was fatally wounded along with his driver, while three companions were badly hurt, when a 20lb bomb tore through his vehicle as he returned home from a political meeting in the city of Dera Ismail Khan. The killing was claimed by Pakistan’s Taliban and deepened fears of more attacks in the run-up to the country’s general election.
Mr Khan condemned the attack on his candidate, who was standing for a seat in a provincial assembly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“Saddened to learn that Ikram Gandapur succumbed to his injuries,” he said. “My prayers go to his family. May Allah give them the strength to bear this loss.”
Mr Gandapur’s brother Israrullah was killed in a suicide attack on his home in 2013. He was the provincial law minister at the time of his death.
Members will be elected for the country’s lower house of parliament and four regional assemblies in Wednesday’s poll.
Police said Mr Gandapur, of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Justice Movement (PTI) party, had been warned about serious threats to his life and been provided with 11 policemen.
A police spokesman claimed Mr Gandapur had not informed police about his political meeting yesterday.
The convoy of Akram Durrani, another election candidate, also came under fire in the north-western town of Bannu, though no one was hurt. Earlier this month, Mr Durrani survived a suicide attack that killed four people.
Violence in the campaign has sharply escalated in recent weeks after a relatively peaceful start. Earlier this month, Siraj Raisani, another provincial assembly candidate, was killed in one of the worst terrorist attacks Pakistan has ever suffered.
A suicide bombing at a rally in Mastung in the south-western Baluchistan province killed Mr Raisani along with 148 people. A bombing three days earlier in the north-western city of Peshawar killed another provincial candidate and 20 others.
Pakistan’s army has said it will deploy more than 370,000 troops on polling day – around five times as many as for the 2013 election.
Mr Khan’s party appears to have surged in popularity in recent months, leaving the election as a two-horse race with the Pakistan Muslim League party of Nawaz Sharif, the jailed former prime minister.
Yesterday, Pakistan’s top court said it had begun reviewing a judge’s allegations that the country’s spy agencies were influencing judicial proceedings.
Sharif, who was jailed along with his daughter Maryam by an anti-corruption court, has accused the military of leaning on the judiciary to pursue investigations against his party.
Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, an Islamabad High Court judge, had accused the country’s main spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), of interfering in legal cases.
He said the agency had told the court not to release Sharif and his daughter Maryam until after the elections.