An election candidate escaped unharmed Wednesday in a suicide bombing in southern Pakistan which left two people wounded, police said, after the latest in a wave of attacks to hit the campaign.
The attack came in southern Shikarpur district of Sindh province, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Karachi, when Mohammad Ibrahim Jatoi, a candidate for the May 11 poll, was on the campaign trail.
“A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up near the car of Mr Jatoi, but he was unharmed,” local police station chief Zaheer Mahesar told AFP.
Only the bomber died in the blast. Jatoi, from the small National People’s Party, was returning from campaigning when the bomber targeted him at a toll collection point, Mahesar said, adding that two passers-by were wounded.
“We have found arms and head of the suicide bomber,” he said. District police chief Ghulam Azfar confirmed the suicide attack and said that up to six kilos of explosives were used in the device. While suicide attacks are a common tactic used by Taliban and other militants in northwest Pakistan, they are rarely seen in the south.
Violence has spiked in the nuclear-armed country ahead of national elections on May 11, with at least 61 people killed in attacks on politicians and political parties since April 11, according to an AFP tally.