KARACHI: A candidate running for parliament in next week’s historic Pakistani election was shot dead yesterday along with his three-year-old son after praying in a mosque in Karachi, police said.
It is the first time that a national assembly candidate has been killed in Pakistan’s election campaign.
Saddiq Zaman Khattak was a businessman and a candidate for the Awami National Party (ANP), the leading secular party in Pakistan’s ethnic Pastun northwest.
“He was returning from a mosque after saying his Friday prayers with his three-year-old son when gunmen on a motorbike opened fire. Both were killed,” police spokesman Imran
Shaukat said.
Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened further attacks on the ANP and its outgoing coalition partners, the Pakistan People’s Party and MQM, the main party in Karachi.
AFP
