Bomb Kills Five at Pakistan Election Office

A bomb attack targeting an election candidate’s office in Northwest Pakistan on Sunday killed at least five people and wounded 22, police said, the latest violence ahead of polls next month.

The device exploded outside the office of an independent candidate in the garrison city of Kohat, which is adjacent to Pakistan’s restive tribal areas along the Afghan border.

“The improvised explosive device (IED) was planted outside the election office. At least five people have been killed and 22 injured,” city police chief Dilawar Khan Bangash told AFP.

Police spokesman in Kohat Fazal Naeem confirmed the attack and told AFP the blast had damaged shops and vehicles near the office of Noor Akbar Khan and also hit an office of the Awami National Party, which had been threatened by the Taliban.

“The election office was open at the time and supporters of Noor Akbar Khan were sitting inside. The death toll may rise, the condition of some of the injured is critical,” Tanveer Khan, another police official told AFP.

Earlier on Sunday three bomb explosions in Pakistan’s business capital of Karachi overnight killed four people and injured 55 others, police said.

The latest in a string of attacks ahead of the May 11 general elections targeted two main political groups opposed by Taliban militants for their anti-insurgency stance.

Police officer Mohammed Zohaib said that a bomb exploded late Saturday near an office of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a dominant party in the city of more than 18 million people.

“One person was killed in the blast, which was followed by a relatively low-intensity explosion outside a nearby Shiite mosque,” Zohaib said.

The two blasts occurring minutes apart injured 39 people, he said.

The MQM, which represents Urdu-speaking people who migrated from India after the end of British colonial rule in 1947, shut scores of its local offices earlier this week after a bomb attack killed five of its supporters Thursday.