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Quetta (Pakistan) – With less than two weeks of legislative elections, tension rekindled Saturday in Pakistan in the aftermath of a suicide bombing of an election rally that killed at least 128 people and arrested of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Claimed by the Islamic State group, the attack, whose balance sheet is still provisional, occurred in Mastung, about forty kilometers from the capital of the volatile province of Balochistan, Quetta, in the southwest from the country.
This is the third attack this week and the second in one day Friday to an election rally, before the parliamentary elections on July 25, in an increasingly tense climate.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, sentenced last week to ten years in prison for corruption, was detained with his daughter Maryam, sentenced to 7 years in prison, upon arrival in Pakistan on Friday. from Abu Dhabi.
His condemnation was denounced as " political " by his clan and caused a sharp rise in tension before the elections. Many observers were concerned about the campaign's turn, where several cases of kidnappings, pressure and threats on media and political activists have been reported. Questioned, the army denies any involvement.
" I know that (…) I will be taken directly to prison ," Sharif said in a video released earlier Friday by his party. " I want to say to the Pakistanis that I did this for you (…) Walk with me, join your hands to mine and change the destination of the country ," said Sharif, who remains very influential.
Until this week, the election campaign had been relatively spared by the violence.
But with 128 deaths, according to provincial authorities, the Mastung bombing is the deadliest in Pakistan since the attack on a school in Peshawar, perpetrated in December 2014 by a Taliban commando, which had made more than 150 dead.
The attack was aimed at a political rally by Mir Siraj Raisani, candidate for a provincial deputy seat under the banner of the Baluchistan Awami Party (BAP), who died in the attack.
" We were standing outside the complex and when Raisani began his speech, a deafening explosion occurred ," said a witness to AFP, Salam Baloch.
" I saw large balls of fire and smoke, people put the dead and wounded in rickshaw and took them to the hospital before help arrived ", he added.
Raisani's badistant, Shams Mengal, claimed that the kamikaze" was in the first rank "." It's is raised and blew up as soon as Raisani begins his speech ", he said.
– A scene" scary "-
The scene after frightening "said another witness, Atta Ullah." Human remains and pieces of bloody flesh were scattered throughout the complex. Wounded cried with pain and fear "
" We arrived at the site of the explosion and found scattered people and there was hardly anyone in good condition. We alerted our vehicles. Thirty ambulances have arrived and the dead and wounded have been transferred "to hospitals, said an ambulance worker from the NGO Edhi, Arif.
The evacuation of the dead and wounded had to be carried out in large numbers. party in the dark for lack of electricity, according to an AFP journalist on the spot Baluchistan is the poorest and most unstable of the provinces of Pakistan
Earlier in the day, another bomb hidden on a motorcycle had exploded near Bannu (north-west), pbading another convict's convoy, killing four people and injuring forty others, police said.
Politician Akram Khan Durrani, representative of a coalition of religious parties, MMA, survived the attack.
A suicide bombing claimed by the Pakistani Taliban also targeted on Tuesday night an election meeting of the Awami National Party (ANP) in Peshawar (northwest), killing 22 people including the local politician Haroon Bilour, according to a new balance sheet.
" The Pakistani authorities have a duty to protect the rights of all Pakistanis during this election period: their physical security and ability to freely express their political views, regardless of which party they belong to ", responded Omar Waraich, Deputy Director for South Asia to Amnesty International.
The military announced earlier this week to plan the deployment of more than 370,000 men to ensure security on polling day.
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