ISLAMABAD\/KARACHI (Reuters) – An assassination attempt on a minister has deepened divisions ahead of Pakistan\u2019s elections, with an Islamist party denying involvement and an opposition figure blaming it on fiery rhetoric by the ousted premier.<\/p>\n
A gunman shot interior minister Ahsan Iqbal, a senior member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and ally of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, as he was leaving a constituency meeting in Punjab province late on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Iqbal was recovering in hospital from a bullet wound on Monday.<\/p>\n
Police have arrested the suspected shooter, describing him as a supporter of the new hardline Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labaik, but the party has disowned the man.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s attack heightened the sense of unease in the runup to the general election, expected by late July.<\/p>\n
Leaders from Pakistan\u2019s main opposition parties all condemned the assassination attempt. But a prominent official of former cricket star Imran Khan\u2019s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) opposition party said Sharif had created the backdrop for the attack at large rallies protesting his removal by the Supreme Court last July.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe condemn it with full force. But the political climate is being seriously affected by Nawaz\u2019s wild accusations against his opponents and creating tension and anger all over,\u201d said Khan\u2019s chief of staff, Naeem ul Haq.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if Nawaz [Sharif] continues to utter poison, such incidents will continue to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s Supreme Court disqualified Sharif as prime minister last July over a small source of unreported income and he is currently on trial before an anti-corruption court, though his party still holds a majority in parliament.<\/p>\n
Sharif has denounced the court ruling as a conspiracy led by rival Khan, routinely gathering large crowds of his supporters to voice his grievances.<\/p>\n
Sharif has portrayed Khan as a puppet of the powerful military establishment, which has a history of meddling in Pakistani politics. Khan denies colluding with the army and the military denies interfering in politics.<\/p>\n
Preliminary reports suggested Sunday\u2019s attacker had links to a new Islamist political party that campaigns on enforcing the death penalty for blasphemy and replacing secular influence on government with strict sharia law.<\/p>\n
Late on Monday, Naeem messaged Reuters with an additional statement, saying: \u201cReligious bigotry is increasing and diluting our politics in a negative way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The assassination attempt on Iqbal has stoked fears of a repeat of the pre-election violence by Islamists that blighted the last two polls, including in 2007 when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s attack, a senior Punjab police official who was present during the interrogation of the suspected shooter – named as Abid Hussain, 21 – told Reuters his statements provided \u201csolid evidence\u201d he was a supporter of the Labaik party but not of any contact with party leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cA moment before the attack, he shouted the slogan \u2018Labaik, labaik ya Rasool!\u2019 (I am here, I am here, oh Prophet of God!), a trademark slogan of Labaik party,\u201d the police official said.<\/p>\n
But the official added: \u201cAt the same time, he talks like a mentally challenged person.\u201d<\/p>\n
During interrogation, the suspect said \u201chis conscience told him\u201d to attack Iqbal over Labaik\u2019s accusations that the ruling party had committed blasphemy, by trying to change election law in a way some said weakened an oath declaring Mohammad the last true prophet.<\/p>\n
The Labaik party – who blockaded roads into Pakistan\u2019s capital, Islamabad, over the election law issue for three weeks in November – said it had no knowledge of the attacker.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got nothing to do with him,\u201d Labaik spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said on Monday. \u201cWe are unarmed. We are in an unarmed struggle. Those conspiring against Tehreek-e-Labaik will not succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labaik was born out of a protest movement supporting Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to relax Pakistan\u2019s draconian blasphemy laws.<\/p>\n
Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the leader of the new party – which won about 8 percent of the vote in a recent by-election – has called Qadri a \u201chero\u201d and campaign posters have declared \u201cdeath to blasphemers\u201d.<\/p>\n
A senior PML-N official, minister of state for interior affairs Talal Chaudhry, said on Monday police were investigating groups that may have influenced the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch people, on an ideological level, are prepared by others,\u201d Chaudhry said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD\/KARACHI (Reuters) – An assassination attempt on a minister has deepened divisions ahead of Pakistan\u2019s elections, with an Islamist party denying involvement and an opposition figure blaming it on fiery rhetoric by the ousted premier. A gunman shot interior minister Ahsan Iqbal, a senior member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and ally of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1746,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/1746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}