By SAEED SHAH
ISLAMABAD—Militants targeted candidates of two of Pakistan’s leading secular political parties, killing one, after the Pakistani Taliban warned that they would attack secular groups in the run-up to national elections on May 11.
The country’s three main secular political parties, which formed the coalition government that led the country after the last national election in 2008, said they are being put at a disadvantage by Taliban attacks.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for Thursday’s killing of Fakhrul Islam, a candidate for the Sindh provincial parliament from the city of Hyderabad, representing the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
The MQM, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Awami National Party have been identified by the Taliban in threats against secular groups. Also on Thursday, an ANP lawmaker running for re-election survived a bombing on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar.
“This isn’t a fair election for us. We aren’t being given an equal chance,” Farooq Sattar, a senior MQM official, said Thursday. “It is a conspiracy to snatch away our mandate.”
The May 11 election will choose a national government as well as governments for the country’s four provinces—marking the first time in Pakistan’s history that a civilian government serves a full term and is succeeded by another democratically elected administration. During the election period, the provinces and the national administrations are being run by neutral interim governments.
The threats against secular parties by the Pakistani Taliban—who are close to al Qaeda but operate independently of the Afghan Taliban—could aid religious and conservative groups by enabling them to more freely stage public campaign events. Secular parties are hoping the violence will attract sympathy votes.
“The attack on the MQM candidate is a continuation of our strategy of targeting the secular parties of the country….We will continue targeting MQM, PPP and ANP workers and party candidates, as well as their election rallies, as these parties are the face of secular infidels,” Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said Thursday.
Both men targeted on Thursday were Muslims. Mr. Islam was shot by two men on a motorbike as he walked from his home to the office of his transport business at around noon Thursday, said senior local police officer Saqib Ismail Memon. The MQM politician was hit by three bullets and died on the spot, Mr. Memon said.
The gunmen couldn’t restart their motorbike and had to steal another to escape, he said.
“The object of terrorists is to disrupt this election process so that voters won’t come out of their homes,” Mr. Memon said.
The second politician targeted by militants on Thursday was the ANP’s Arbab Ayub Jan, the outgoing minister for agriculture in the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.