At least 28 people were killed and 35 wounded in a suicide attack on a polling station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, officials said, as millions voted in a nationwide election Wednesday.
“(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. The incident and toll were confirmed by a second senior local official. The attack is not yet claimed by any group.
It was hit by several bombings during the brief but angry and bitter election campaign, including a devastating blast claimed by the Islamic State group which killed 153 people this month, and was Pakistan’s deadliest ever suicide attack.
An earlier attack in the province on Wednesday left one policeman dead and three wounded when a hand grenade was thrown at a polling station in the village of Koshk, in Khuzdar district.
Up to 800,000 police and troops 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 killed more than 180 people including three candidates.
SIASAT NEWS