ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate and former federal minister Sheikh Aftab Ahmed escaped a gun attack on Monday night in his hometown of Attock, some 90 kilometers from Islamabad.
Ahmed, a candidate for National Assembly constituency NA-55 along with his son Sheikh Salman Sarwar, a PML-N candidate for a provincial assembly seat, was returning home after addressing a public rally in a nearby village when an unknown attacker fired on their vehicle.
“At night when we were passing through a deserted area, someone fired on our vehicle and bullets hit the back door but luckily we remained unhurt,” Ahmed told Arab News.
The gunman fled the scene in the dark.
Ahmed served as a federal minister for parliamentary affairs in the outgoing government and is a known loyalist of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Meanwhile, a leading human rights watchdog urged Pakistan’s interim government to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of political candidates and party activists who are at risk of attack from the Taliban and other militant groups.
With only a week left till the general elections, attacks on political party candidates have killed more than 170 people and injured hundreds since July 10 alone.
“The Taliban and other militants have killed and injured hundreds of people in their quest to disrupt Pakistan’s elections,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) Asia director Brad Adams said in a statement on Monday.
The watchdog said: “The upcoming elections could be severely compromised unless the government and security forces take immediate measures to ensure that all parties can campaign freely, without fear.”
HRW urged that the Taliban and other militant groups should cease attacks on people campaigning for office and their supporters.
Pakistani authorities need to credibly investigate such attacks and appropriately bring those responsible to justice, added the statement.
On July 13, in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Pakistan’s history, at least 149 people were killed during an election rally held by Nawabzada Siraj Raisani of the Balochistan Awami Party in Mastung, Balochistan. Raisani was killed in the attack.
On July 10, Haroon Bilour, a senior leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), was killed along with at least 20 others in a suicide bombing targeting his election meeting in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
The militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. Bilour’s father, Bashir Bilour, also an ANP leader, was killed in a suicide bomb attack by the same group in 2012.
On July 13, four people were killed and at least 32 injured when the convoy of Akram Khan Durrani, a senior political leader of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, was targeted in a remote-controlled blast in Bannu district of KP. Fortunately, Durrani survived the attack.
“On July 10, Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority said that six political leaders and two parties may be targeted by militants in the ongoing election campaign. The individuals named are Imran Khan, Asfandyar Wali, Ameer Haider Hoti, Aftab Sherpao, Akram Khan Durrani, and Talha Saeed. In addition, leaders from the Pakistan People’s Party and PML-N were also deemed at risk of attack,” HRW said.
“After decades of military rule, Pakistan has embarked on its third democratic transition, and the authorities should do their utmost to ensure security for all,” Adams said.
“Violence that prevents all Pakistanis from participating freely, in safety, risks setting back the country’s democratic progress.”