islamabad: Following a pivotal meeting of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the security concerns in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Caretaker Interior Minister Dr Gohar Ejaz said on Thursday that the elections would be held on February 8 \u201ccome what may.\u201d
\nThe development comes a day after the assassination of a National Assembly independent candidate in Bajaur district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the killing of an ANP activist in Balochistan\u2019s Qilla Abdullah.
\nA sudden spurt in violence \u2014 just eight days before the general elections \u2014 also saw a grenade attack on the election campaign office of PPP candidate, Ali Madad Jatak, on Quetta\u2019s Sariab Road. A similar grenade attack was carried out at the residence of another PPP candidate, Mir Zahoor Buledi, in Kech district of Balochistan.
\nOn Tuesday, a bomb blast on a main road in Balochistan\u2019s Sibi during an election rally led by Saddam Tareen, a PTI-affiliated independent candidate for NA-253 (Ziarat) constituency, leaving at least four people dead and five others injured.
\n\u201cThere should be no ambiguity in anyone\u2019s mind about the elections [on February 8]. The ECP and the caretaker government will ensure the conduct of elections, and they will take place on February 8 under all circumstances,\u201d he said while speaking to the media following the ECP meeting.
\nThe meeting, chaired by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja, saw the participation of key officials, including Secretary Election Commission Dr Asif Hussain, Caretaker Interior Minister Gohar Ejaz, Interior Secretary Aftab Akbar Durrani, chief secretaries of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and inspector generals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
islamabad: Following a pivotal meeting of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the security concerns in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Caretaker Interior Minister Dr Gohar Ejaz said on Thursday that the elections would be held on February 8 \u201ccome what may.\u201d The development comes a day after the assassination of a National Assembly independent candidate …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60289,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60281\/revisions\/60289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}