{"id":2897,"date":"2018-07-25T11:09:33","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T07:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=2897"},"modified":"2018-07-25T11:09:33","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T07:09:33","slug":"at-least-28-dead-40-hurt-in-suicide-attack-during-pakistan-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/07\/25\/at-least-28-dead-40-hurt-in-suicide-attack-during-pakistan-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"At least 28 dead, 40 hurt in suicide attack during Pakistan polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 28 people have been killed after a blast in the Pakistani city of Quetta, as Pakistan goes to the polls.<\/p>\n

Initial reports say at least 28 have been killed – including three police officers and two children – after the suicide attack outside a polling station.<\/p>\n

Local media states another 35 people were injured in the blast.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n
A damaged police vehicle after the suicide attack on a polling booth today.<\/div>\n
Twitter\/Shazadi Baloch<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“(The bomber) was trying to enter the polling station. When police tried to stop him he blew himself up,” a local administration official in Quetta, Hashim Ghilzai, told AFP.<\/p>\n

The incident and toll were confirmed by a second senior local official.<\/p>\n

Pakistan’s election has been marred by violence and polls opened today following repeated attacks on civilians and political candidates.<\/p>\n

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The vote is meant to be a rare democratic transition of power in the nuclear-armed country which has been ruled by the powerful military for roughly half its history.<\/p>\n

\"Pakistani<\/p>\n
Pakistani election officials receive ballot boxes and voting materials at a distribution centre in Peshawar on July 24, 2018.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But it has been dubbed Pakistan’s “dirtiest election” due to widespread accusations of pre-poll rigging by the armed forces, with Khan believed to be the beneficiary.<\/p>\n

The contest has largely boiled down to a two-way race between Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, whose brother Shahbaz is leading the campaign.<\/p>\n

The first voter to enter a polling station in the eastern city of Lahore was a woman, business executive Maryum Arif, who told AFP she planned to vote for the PML-N as “it has served Pakistan”.<\/p>\n

\"Pakistani<\/p>\n
Pakistani election staff prepare election material ahead of voting.<\/div>\n
AAP<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

She was followed shortly after by Shahbaz Sharif, who called on Pakistanis to “get out of their homes and … change the fate of Pakistan” before casting his own vote and flashing a victory sign.<\/p>\n

The election day suicide bombing is just the latest in a string of deadly attacks.<\/p>\n

Up to 800,000 police and military forces have been stationed at more than 85,000 polling stations across the country, with concerns for security after a string of bloody militant attacks in the final weeks of the campaign that have killed more than 200 people, including three candidates.<\/p>\n

Earlier, one policeman was killed and three wounded in a hand grenade attack on a polling station in southwestern Balochistan, Pakistan’s poorest and most restive province, local police there told AFP.<\/p>\n

No group has yet claimed the attack, but Balochistan suffers from Islamist and separatists insurgencies and was the scene of several campaign bombings, including a devastating attack claimed by the Islamic State group which killed 153 people this month.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

SBS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 28 people have been killed after a blast in the Pakistani city of Quetta, as Pakistan goes to the polls. Initial reports say at least 28 have been killed – including three police officers and two children – after the suicide attack outside a polling station. Local media states another 35 people were …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}