Pakistani security officials at the site of a bomb explosion outside a political party’s office in Karachi, yesterday.
KARACHI: Bomb attacks targeting election offices in Pakistan yesterday killed six people and injured nine, officials said, in the latest violence ahead of polls next month.
Five people were killed and eight injured late yesterday in Pakistan’s commercial hub, the port city of Karachi, when a bomb exploded outside the office of secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party, police said.
MQM was a coalition partner in the recent government and has been threatened by Pakistan’s umbrella Taliban faction.
“Five people have been killed and eight injured. The bomb was planted in a motor-bike,” Amir Farooqi, a police official said.
Javed Ahmad, another police official, confirmed the attack and said its target was an election office of MQM.
Party spokesman Qamar Mansur said that the office was closed following a bomb blast on Tuesday which killed four people.
“All the victims were standing outside the office when the bomb exploded,” he said.
Earlier in the day, a grenade attack on an election office in southwest Pakistan killed one person and injured another, officials said.
Senior government official Shah Irfan said two men riding a motorcycle threw the grenade at the election office of Sardar Umar Gorgage, a provincial leader in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which is seeking re-election at the ballot box on May 11 after five years in power.
Irfan said the attack took place in Nushki district, some 170 kilometres west of Quetta, the capital of the troubled oil and gas-rich province of Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Pakistan’s umbrella Taliban faction has directly threatened the outgoing coalition partners, the PPP, Awami National Party and MQM, which are perceived as secular.
AFP
