The deadliest attacks in Pakistan’s troubled election campaign killed at least 132 people, including a candidate, on Friday just before the arrest of disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon his return to the country.

In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a suicide bomber killed 128 people, including a politician running for a provincial legislature. Four others died in a strike in Pakistan’s northwest, spreading panic in the country.

The attacks came hours before Sharif returned from London along with his daughter Maryam to face a 10-year prison sentence on corruption charges, anti- corruption officials said. Maryam faces seven years in prison.

He was taken into custody to serve his sentence; however, he is expected to appeal and seek bail.

In the southern town of Mastung, candidate Siraj Raisani and 127 others died when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid scores of supporters who had gathered at a rally.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried on its Aamaq news agency.

Raisani is the brother of the former Baluchistan chief minister, Aslam Raisani. Caretaker Home Minister Agha Umar Bungalzai said another 300 people were wounded in Friday’s bombing.

The U.S. State Department in a statement strongly condemned this week’s attacks on political candidates and their supporters in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Sharif arrived in the eastern city of Lahore from London where he was visiting his ailing wife when a Pakistani court convicted him and his daughter of corruption.

Sharif’s son-in-law is serving his one-year prison sentence on the same charge, which stems from the purchase of luxury apartments in Britain that the court said were bought with illegally acquired money.

In a video message Friday reportedly from aboard his aircraft en route to Pakistan, Sharif said he was returning knowing he would be taken directly to prison.

Sharif has been banned from participating in politics, and his brother Shahbaz Sharif now heads his Pakistan Muslim League and is campaigning for re-election July 25.

In the video, Sharif said he was not afraid of prison and asked people to vote for his party. He also used the opportunity to again criticize Pakistan’s powerful military, which has ruled the country directly or indirectly for most of its 71-year history, saying Pakistan now has a “state above the state.”

Source: The Gazette

BDST: 0946 HRS, JUL 14, 2018
SI