Pakistan opens terrorism investigation against ex-PM’s party 10 days before election

Lahore, Pakistan/Islamabad (Reuters): Pakistani authorities have opened a criminal investigation into leaders of jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s political party under an anti-terrorism law, 10 days before a hotly contested general election, according to police documents.

The case relates to a march staged by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on 13 July, when Sharif returned to Pakistan, which defied a ban on holding public rallies on a Friday. The former premier was arrested minutes after landing in the country after being sentenced in absentia by an anti-corruption court on 6 July.

Copies of two separate First Information Reports (FIR), which mark the formal opening of a criminal investigation, named PML-N leader Shehbaz Sharif, who is Nawaz Sharif’s brother, and a number of other key figures. They include former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who replaced Sharif last year and served until June, when the caretaker government took over.

The FIRs cite section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which has broad provisions defining terrorism to include creating public fear, and lists 10 alleged violations of ordinary criminal law including unlawful assembly. “We are taking action against PML-N leaders,” the caretaker home minister of Punjab, Shaukat Javed, told Reuters on Sunday. “But no one will be arrested before the elections.”

He said that including the terrorism charges was a “mistake” that would be corrected later.

Shehbaz Sharif led Friday’s march across the city of Lahore, in which tens of thousands of people took part, intending to send a message to rivals that the popular vote is still with the PML-N ahead of the 25 July election.

National polls indicate a close race between the ruling PML-N and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, or Pakistan Justice Movement) led by former cricket star Imran Khan, with the Pakistan Peoples Party in third place.

Sharif, who was removed from office by the Supreme Court last year and sentenced this month to 10 years in prison for corruption, alleges the military is aiding a “judicial witch-hunt” to prevent the PML-N from winning a second term.

The party’s past five years in government have been characterised by discord with the military, which has ruled Pakistan for nearly half its 71-year history.

The Sharifs’ return could shake up an election riven by accusations the military is working behind the scenes to skew the contest in favour of Khan, who describes Sharif as a “criminal” deserving no support.

Musadik Malik, a senior PML-N official and member of the Senate, said the FIRs were part of a pattern that included pressuring candidates to change to PTI and corruption cases against other party leaders. “This FIR is just another attempt of intimidation and political victimisation,” Malik said.

Malik said the PML-N rally was overwhelmingly peaceful and any ban on gatherings so close to the election was unfair.

Death toll in Pakistan election rally bombing rises to 149

ISLAMABAD (Reuters): The death toll from a suicide attack on an election rally in Pakistan’s south-western Baluchistan Province on Friday spiked to 149, officials said, putting it among the deadliest attacks in the South Asian nation’s history.

As campaigning steps up for general elections on 25 July, bombings across Pakistan have stoked fears of more violence in the country of 208 million, where political rallies can draw tens of thousands of people.

Friday’s attack at a rally for the Baluchistan Awami Party (BAP) outside the town of Mastung was claimed by militant group Islamic State. Among the dead was the party’s provincial candidate, Siraj Raisani.

A video clip showed Raisani beginning his speech just before the attack, greeting crowds seated on the ground under a large tent before the blast hit and the image cut off.

Provincial government officials said they were not told about the rally and so, had not provided security to Raisani, beyond the bodyguards in his security detail.

“The death toll of the Mastung carnage is now 149,” Senior Police Official Qaim Lashari told Reuters, adding that more than 180 people were wounded and that the dead included nine children.

Many of the wounded remain in critical condition at hospitals in Mastung, the provincial capital of Quetta, and in the southern city of Karachi. Officials expect the death toll to rise.

Until this week, Pakistan’s election campaign had been relatively peaceful, compared with frequent Pakistani Taliban attacks during the 2013 election, when 170 people were killed, figures from the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies show.

Last Tuesday, a Pakistani Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up at a rally by the Awami National Party (ANP) in the north-western city of Peshawar, killing 20 people.