IS bomber targets Quetta polling station, 35 killed
Clashes erupt between rival parties in KhyberPakhtunkhwa
Islamic State group through its official Amaq news agency.
It was IS’s latest assault on Balochistan, Pakistan’s poorest and most volatile province that struggles with multiple Islamist and separatist insurgencies.
Voters appeared undeterred, returning to polling booths after the dead and injured had been evacuated.
“Bombings keep on happening and life also goes on here, I am voting,” Abdul Razzaq, 50, told AFP.
“What has happened, happened, it cannot stop people from voting,” added Ali Khan, 30.
Balochistan has suffered the brunt of a series of attacks that killed more than 180 people across Pakistan during the brief but acrimonious election campaign. A blast in Mastung district also claimed by IS killed 153 people including local politician Siraj Raisani.
He was one of three election candidates killed by militants during the election campaign.
An earlier attack in Balochistan on Wednesday left one policeman dead and three wounded when a hand grenade was thrown at a polling station in the village of Koshk, in Khuzdar district.
In another instance of poll violence, supporters of two rival parties exchanged fire outside a polling station in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, killing a worker of former cricketer Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and injuring two others. Khan’s party worker was killed as activists clashed with Awami National Party supporters in Nawan Kali of Swabi district.