Militants gun down Pakistan poll candidate

Karachi: Gunmen shot and killed an Awami National Party (ANP) candidate running for parliament in next week’s election on Friday along with his six-year son when he was returning home after offering afternoon prayers.

The elections in the constituency were to be called off following the incident, an election official said.

Police officials said that Saddiq Zaman Khattak was a businessman and a candidate for the ANP, the l secular party in Pakistan’s ethnic northwest. A party leader said he had received threats before.

“He was returning from a mosque after Friday prayers with his three-year-old son when gunmen on a motorbike opened fire. Both were killed,” police spokesman Imran Shaukat told Gulf News.

Senior ANP leader Bashir Jan confirmed the attack and the deaths.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Taliban has directly threatened the ANP and the two other main parties in the outgoing government, branding the democratic elections un-Islamic.

Friday’s assassination brings to three the number of constituencies where the May 11 election will now be delayed because candidates have been killed.

An election official told Gulf News that under the People’s Representation Act of 1976, the elections would be deferred into the constituency as per rules.

A man standing for the secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the Sindh provincial assembly, of which Karachi is the capital, was shot dead in the southern city of Hyderabad on April 11.

Karachi has seen a string of attacks on the election campaign. Late Thursday, a bomb wounded at least five people near an election office for MQM, the party that dominates Karachi.

Three bombs, two of which targeted MQM and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), killed three people and wounded 49 others on Saturday.

Unknown gunmen also killed a lawyer at the PIDC bridge when they ambushed his car. The father of the lawyer sustained bullet injuries and was rushed to the hospital.