Two bombings outside electoral candidates’ offices in Pakistan’s southern region of Balochistan killed at least 24 perosns and and injured scores, local officials said on Wednesday.
This has heightened the fears about security ahead of a general election.
Pakistan goes to the polls on Thursday amid increased militant assaults in recent months and the imprisonment of Imran Khan, the winner of the last national election, who has dominated the news despite an economic crisis and other problems affecting the nuclear-armed country.
Authorities have said they are boosting security at polling booths.
The first attack, which killed 14, took place at the office of an independent election candidate in Pishin district.
The second explosion in Qilla Saifullah, a town near the Afghan border, detonated near an office of Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), a religious party that has previously been the target of militant attacks, according to the province’s information minister.
The deputy commissioner of Qila Saifullah, Yasir Bazai, said that 12 people were killed in the blast which emanated from a motorcycle parked near the office and 25 were injured.
t was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks. Several groups, including the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and separatist groups from Balochistan, oppose the Pakistani state and have carried out attacks in recent months.
Separately, a TTP spokesman claimed an attack on Monday that had killed ten people at a police station in north-west Pakistan. Though the TTP has said it is targeting police and security officials, rather than electoral candidates, the attack had raised concerns about security in Pakistan’s border regions as the country goes to the polls.
