Convoy of election candidate, Mehrullah Hassni, was attacked last night in Awaran, Balochistan.
Convoy of Mehrullah Hassani, who is contesting on PB 44, was attacked by unknown armed assailants when he was campaigning in Mashkay town of Awaran district.
Balochistan’s most active armed group, Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), has claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to The Balochistan Post correspondent, armed men opened fire on the convoy of Mehrullah Hassni near Ronjan village, as a result, several people in his convoy were injured, but Mehrullah Hassni remained unscathed. However, as per BLF’s claim Mehrullah has also been injured in the attack.
Local Baloch nationalists accuse Mehrullah Hassni of heading an armed group sponsored by Pakistani forces, who ‘target Baloch activists to curb the dissent’.
BLF, in a statement released to the media, has claimed they were behind the attack on the election candidate.
“We attacked the convoy of death squad leader and the election candidate, Mehrullah Hassni, last night near Ronjan village, many of his men were critically injured, and he himself also sustained injuries”, said Gohram Baloch, BLF’s spokesperson, in a late night call to the media persons.
“It is not the first time that establishment has tried to clean up its death squad heads through the elections, many of Pakistani legislative members run death squads”, accused BLF’s spokesperson, Gohram Baloch.
Last week, Siraj Raisani, another election candidate was killed in a suicide bomb.
Attack on Raisani was claimed by ISIS, however, Baloch political groups had also accused Raisani of heading a death squad in Sarawan region of Balochistan. He was also accused of being involved in murdering and kidnapping pro-freedom activists.
BLF in today’s statement took responsibility of other attacks too including attack on an Army camp in Buleda and a bomb attack on a military vehicle in Panjgur. BLF claimed multiple Pakistani personnel were killed in these attacks.
Goharam Baloch also said that BLF fighters were behind rocket attacks on Pakistani military camps in Raghay and Jhao.