At Least 30 Killed as Suicide Bomber Tries to Enter Polling Station in Pakistan Quetta
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - At least 30 people have been killed and 35 wounded in a suicide attack near a polling station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta as millions vote in a nationwide election today.
'[The bomber] was trying to enter the polling station. When police tried to stop him he blew himself up,' a local administration official in Quetta, Hashim Ghilzai, told AFP.
Dr .Wasim Baig, spokesman for the Sandeman Provincial Hospital in Quetta, said the death toll had risen to 30 after two people succumbed to their injuries. Earlier, officials had said 28 people were killed and more than 30 injured.
ISIS (also known as Daesh) has claimed responsibility for the mass murder through its Amaq propaganda unit.
Two children and five police officers are thought to be among the dead.
The province of Balochistan, of which Quetta is the capital, has already been hit by several bombings during the brief but acrimonious election campaign.
This month, 153 people were murdered in a devastating blast claimed by ISIS fanatics. It was Pakistan's deadliest ever suicide attack.
An earlier attack in the province on Wednesday left one policeman dead and three wounded when a hand grenade was thrown at a polling station in the village of Koshk, in Khuzdar district.
Polls opened today in a tense, unpredictable Pakistani election that could be former World Cup cricketer Imran Khan's best shot at power, after a campaign marred by allegations of military interference and a series of deadly attacks.
The vote is meant to be a rare democratic transition of power in the nuclear-armed country which has been ruled by the powerful military for roughly half its history.
But it has been dubbed Pakistan's 'dirtiest election' due to widespread accusations of pre-poll rigging by the armed forces, with Khan believed to be the beneficiary.
The contest has largely boiled down to a two-way race between Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, whose brother Shahbaz is leading the campaign.
