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By Gul Yousafzai
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber hit a campaign in southwestern Pakistan, a police official said, killing 27 people in the second election-related attack on Friday amid tensions over prime minister Nawaz Sharif's return ahead of the July 25 vote.
Among those killed was Baluchistan provincial assembly candidate Siraj Raisani, whose brother Nawab Aslam Raisani had served as the provincial chief minister from 2008 to 2013.
"My brother Siraj Raisani has
Senior police official Qaim Lashari Raisani was convicted of Raisani's convoy but was attacked by Raisani.
Pakistan's caretaker government launched a crackdown on political gatherings on Friday as Sharif, who was ousted by the Supreme Court last year and convicted in absentia of bribe a week ago, was flying back to rally his party ahead of the general elections.
Earlier in the day, a bomb blast killed four people in the northern town of Bannu when it struck the convoy of Akram Khan Durrani, an ally of Sharif's party of the religious Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal party (MMA).
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a rally by an anti-Taliban political party in the northern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing 20 people including Haroon Bilour who was hoping to win a provincial assembly seat in July
Pakistani Taliban
Bilor was part of the predominantly secular, ethnic Pashtun nationalist Awa National Party, which has long been competing with Islamist parties in Pakistan's volatile Pashtun lands, along with the border with Afghanistan.
His father, senior ANP leader Bashir Bilour, was killed in a suicide bombing in late 2012, in the run
(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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