Daily Times

Awami National Party (ANP) leader Daud Khan Achakzai was injured after assailants opened fire on the guesthouse of the party’s candidate Zmrak Khan Achakzai in Chaman on Monday.

According to Levies officials, the incident occurred in Alizai area of Balochistan’s northwestern Qilla Abdullah district.

Formerly a senator, Daud is the central vice president of ANP who was visiting Zmrak – the party’s candidate from PB-21 constituency – when he came under the attack.

The assailants fled the crime scene immediately after firing. Police cordoned off the area and launched a search operation.

The injured was shifted to Quetta for medical treatment.

The military had earlier warned of security threats in the run-up to the election on July 25 and said it would deploy more than 370,000 soldiers on polling day.

This was the fourth terrorist attack on politicians.

The spate of attacks on candidates contesting the upcoming polls began on July 10 when a bomb targeted a rally by ANP in Peshawar, martyring local party leader Haroon Bilour along with 21 others.

An attack on a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) convoy in Bannu on July 13 followed the tragic Peshawar incident. The Bannu incident claimed lives of at least four people, while 10 others were injured in the explosion. According to JUI-F leader Akram Khan Durrani, the blast took place near the tyre of his jeep when he was passing through Haved Bazaar after addressing an election rally.

Later the same day, in what was one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s history, Balochistan Awami Party candidate Nawab Siraj Raisani along with at least 140 others was martyred when a suicide bomber blew himself up during an election rally in Mastung’s Darengarh area.

Published in Daily Times, July 17^th 2018.