Mastung blast death toll rises drastically
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QUETTA At least 70 people, including politician Nawabzada Siraj Raisani, were killed and 120 injured in a deadly blast in Balochistan's Mastung district Friday afternoon, provincial Health Minister Faiz Kakar.
Levies sources said the blast targeted a corner meeting organised by Siraj, a Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) candidate for PB-35 (Mastung). "Mir Siraj Raisani succumbed to his wounds while he was being shifted to Quetta," Agha Umar Bungalzai, provincial home minister, told *AFP*
"It apparently was a suicide attack,"he added, though that could not be immediately confirmed.
The injured were shifted to nearby hospitals, including District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital Mastung and Quetta Civil Hospital, for medical treatment. The critically injured were shifted to CMH Quetta. Nawabzada Siraj Raisani
The younger brother of former Balochistan chief minister Nawab Aslam Raisani, Nawabzada Siraj had been chief of the Balochistan Muttahida Mahaz (BMM), formed by Nawab Ghous Bakhsh Raisani in the 1970s, till June this year. [image: Nawab Siraj Raisani. — DawnNewsTV] Nawab Siraj Raisani. — DawnNewsTV
He was contesting PB-35 (Mastung) for the 2018 elections against his own brother Nawab Aslam Raisani, who is contesting as an independent candidate.
Siraj's teenage son, Hakmal Raisani, had been killed on his vehicle in the same district in 2011. Siraj, who had been present inside the vehicle at the time of the attack, had escaped unhurt.
Shrugging off the threat to his own life, he had said at the time that he would continue to "raise the slogan of Pakistan".
