Coffin brought to morgue in Pakistan. AFP Photo

Authorities said six people were killed and 10 others injured on Monday evening in a firing at a political gathering in Chakwal district of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province.

General elections are scheduled to be held in Pakistan on Wednesday to elect the members of the National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies of Pakistan.

The incident took place when a person opened fire with his automatic gun at the participants of a political rally in Torote area of Talagang region of Chakwal district.

Police and rescue teams rushed to the site and shifted the bodies and injured to the hospital.

The assailant committed suicide with his gun soon after spraying bullets at the crowd.

Police said that the attacker was an insane person who opened fire after getting infuriated by the rally of a party he did not support.

NAN reports that on July 16, officials said 140 people were killed at an election rally in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan, putting it among the deadliest attacks in the south Asian nation’s history.

The attack at a rally for the Baluchistan Awami Party (BAP) outside the town of Mastung was claimed by militant group Islamic State. Among the dead was the party’s provincial candidate, Siraj Raisani.
A video clip showed Raisani beginning his speech just before the attack, greeting crowds seated on the ground under a large tent before the blast hit and the image cut off.

Provincial government officials said they were not told about the rally and so had not provided security to Raisani, beyond the bodyguards in his security detail.

Many of the wounded remain in critical condition at hospitals in Mastung, the provincial capital of Quetta and in the southern city of Karachi. Officials expect the death toll to rise.

Until the attack, Pakistan’s election campaign had been relatively peaceful, compared with frequent Pakistani Taliban attacks during the 2013 election, when 170 people were killed, figures from the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies show.

(Xinhua/NAN)