Pakistan election candidate killed in suicide attack

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The latest violent attack in campaigning for Wednesday's elections in Pakistan has claimed the lives of a northwestern provincial assembly candidate and his driver.

According to police officer Zahoor Afridi, the candidate Ikramullah Gandapur from opposition leader Imran Khan's party, was returning home from a campaign event on Sunday when a suicide bomber struck in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, wounding him.

He died a short while later in a military hospital, Afridi said. Along with his driver who was also killed, three other people, including two policemen, were wounded.

Pakistanis are due to elect the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, and four provincial assemblies when they go to the polls.

Rescue workers move the body of Ikramullah Gandapur, a candidate of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Justice Movement, who was killed in a suicide attack in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, July 22, 2018. /VCG Photo

Later Sunday, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed Gandapur.

Earlier this month, a provincial assembly candidate was killed in a massive suicide bombing in Mastung district in southwestern Baluchistan province, along with 148 people. Also, in the northwestern city of Peshawar, a suicide bombing this month killed another provincial assembly candidate and 20 others.

Gandapur's brother Israr was killed in a suicide attack in 2013. After his younger brother's death, Gandapur was elected as a member of the assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and appointed provincial minister for agriculture.

Activists of the Milli Muslim League shout slogans against the Mastung bomb blast in Karachi on July 14, 2018, a day after the attack in the country's southwest. /VCG

In the July 25 balloting, he was to run on the list of the Tahrike-e-Insaf party, led by Khan, who aspires to become the country's next prime minister.

Also Sunday, the convoy of another election candidate, Akram Durrani, came under fire in the northwestern town of Bannu. No one was hurt.

Durrani survived a suicide attack earlier this month that killed four people.

Supporters of Pakistani cricketer turned politician Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) attend an election campaign rally by Khan's ahead of the general election in Karachi, July 22, 2018. /VCG Photo

Following Sunday's attacks, Pakistan's election oversight body postponed the balloting for the provincial assembly seat that Gandapur was contesting.

It also postponed the balloting for the National Assembly seat from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where a candidate from former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party was disqualified after being convicted of substance abuse.

Voting for those two seats will take place at a later date.

Source(s): AP