28 killed, 47 injured in twin blasts outside candidate offices in Pishin District and Killa Saifullah District in Balochistan a day ahead of General elections.
The first Blast targeted Independent candidate Asfandyar Khan Kakar in Khanozai district Pishin.
Mr kakar was present in the office at the time of the blast. At least 15 people were killed in the blast and more than a dozen were injured.
The second blast hit the local political office of JUI-F leader Maulana Wasey, who at the time of the blast was in his office. 13 people are dead and 17 are critically injured.
The injured are being shifted to the civil hospital in Pishin and Quetta. Health care facilities are worse in this part of the province. Pishin has a single district hospital with little medical facilities.
Killa Saifullah district hospital is the only hospital in the district.
This is the first time that a religious Political party campaign office has been hit in the province.
Religious Madaris (Seminaries) are in a greater number than schools on the Killa Saif Ullah District.
JUI is one of the leading Islamist party that enjoys great support from the religious seminaries and is known for backing the Afghan Taliban. JUI’s religious Madaris are spread across the country, especially in the northwest and Baluchistan bordering Afghanistan. Many of Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders studied at Islamic seminaries operated by JUI, yet JUI Ameer Maulana Fazal Rahman and his party leaders in recent years have been attacked by the Islamic State group, Tehreek Taliban Pakistan and other groups.
After the fall of Kabul in August 2021 to the Tehreek Taliban Afghanistan, the northwestern part of Balochistan has witnessed a surge in coordinated attacks by the Tehreek Taliban Pakistan on the security apparatus of the province. TTP, Islamic State Khurasan and other militant groups are responsible for the 80 percent of attacks on the law enforcement agencies in the Province.
Today’s explosion’s came a day after at least nine grenade assaults that targeted voting places and candidate offices across the Makran division and Quetta.
Last week security forces thwarted three “coordinated attacks,” 24 terrorists were killed during firefights and clearance operations in Mach and Kolpur in three days.
