132 die in Pakistan election violence ahead of Sharif return

The deadliest attacks in Pakistan's troubled election campaign killed at least 132 people, including a candidate, on Friday just before the arrest of disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon his return to the country.

Pakistan army troops guard the area of suicide attack at an election rally in Bannu, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. Underscoring the security threat, two bombs exploded Friday killing14 people in the latest election related violence to hit Pakistan. (AP Photo/Abdul Haseeb)

In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a suicide bomber killed 128 people, including a politician running for a provincial legislature. Four others died in a strike in Pakistan's northwest, spreading panic in the country.

The attacks came hours before Sharif returned from London along with his daughter Maryam to face a 10-year prison sentence on corruption charges, anti-corruption officials said. Maryam Sharif faces seven years in jail.

A Pakistani mourns over a dead body of his family member who is killed in a bomb attack, at a mortuary in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

He was taken into custody to serve his sentence however he is expected to appeal and seek bail. It wasn't clear when his appeal would be filed but he has until Monday.

In the southern town of Mastung, candidate Siraj Raisani and 127 others died when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid scores of supporters who had gathered at a rally.

Pakistani volunteers rush injured persons to a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried on its Aamaq news agency.

The group gave no reason for the bombing that killed Raisani, who was running for the election on the Baluchistan Awami Party ticket.

Raisani is the brother of the former Baluchistan chief minister, Aslam Raisani. Caretaker Home Minister Agha Umar Bungalzai told The Associated Press another 300 people were wounded in Friday's bombing.

People shift injured persons to a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

The U.S. State Department in a statement strongly condemned this week's attacks on political candidates and their supporters in Pakistan.

"These attacks are cowardly attempts to deprive the Pakistani people of their democratic rights," it said. "We will continue to stand with the people of Pakistan and the broader South Asia region in their fight against terrorism."

A man talks on a phone sitting next to a body of his family member killed in a bomb attack, in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Meanwhile, Sharif arrived in the eastern city of Lahore from London where he was visiting his ailing wife when a Pakistani court convicted him and his daughter of corruption.

Sharif's son-in-law is currently serving his one-year prison sentence on the same charge, which stems from the purchase of luxury apartments in Britain that the court said were bought with illegally acquired money.

Shahbaz Sharif, sits in car on left, brother of Pakistani former prime minister Nawaz Sharif leaves for airport in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

Ahead of his return, police swept through Lahore, arresting scores of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party workers to prevent them from greeting him at the airport.

Barbed wire was strung across some roads leading to the Lahore airport on Friday and barricades were positioned at the roadside ready to close off main boulevards should crowds start to gather.

People rush an injured person to a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

In a video message Friday reportedly from aboard his aircraft en route to Pakistan, Sharif said he was returning knowing he would be taken directly to prison.

Sharif has been banned from participating in politics, and his brother Shahbaz Sharif now heads his Pakistan Muslim League and is campaigning for re-election on July 25.

In a televised appeal to supporters from London earlier this week, Sharif said he was not afraid of prison and asked people to vote for his party. He also used the opportunity to again criticize Pakistan's powerful military, which has ruled the country directly or indirectly for most of its 71-year history, saying Pakistan now has a "state above the state."

People rush an injured person to a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

During his term in office, Sharif criticized the military's involvement in civilian affairs and its efforts in fighting extremists.

Pakistani and international rights groups have accused the military of seeking to maintain its influence in Pakistani politics by keeping Sharif out of power. The military denied the accusations saying their assistance in carrying out the elections was requested by Pakistan's Election Commission. The army will deploy 350,000 security personnel to polling stations throughout the country on election day.

People taking bodies of bombing victims to their villages for burial at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Underscoring the security threat, were Friday's bombings the first of which killed four people in the northwest near the election rally of a senior politician from an Islamist party.

The explosion targeted candidate Akram Khan Durrani, who escaped unhurt, and wounded 20 people, said local police chief Rashid Khan.

Durrani is running in the July 25 vote against popular former lawmaker Imran Khan. He is a candidate of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an election alliance of radical religious groups.

People taking bodies of bombing victims to their villages for burial at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

The attacks came days after a suicide bomber dispatched by the Pakistani Taliban killed secular politician Haroon Ahmed Bilour and 20 others at his rally in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Mourners take a bombing victim relative for burial in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Former lawmaker Imran Khan, who hopes to become the next prime minister, condemned Friday's attack against his opponent, Durrani. In a tweet, he said there seems to be a conspiracy to sabotage the July 25 vote. But he said the people of Pakistan will not allow anything to prevent "historic" elections from taking place.

People hold an injured supporter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif after a clash with police in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

Police use force to disperse supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who gathered to see him in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, July 13, 2018. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities are investigating the shooting death of a man who had been acquitted of killing accused Indian spy Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore prison in 2013, a police official said Sunday.

Pakistan has previously accused India’s intelligence agency of being involved in killings inside Pakistan, saying it had credible evidence linking two Indian agents to the deaths of two Pakistanis last year.

The man who died in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday was Amir Tamba. He was a suspect in the death of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national who was convicted of spying in Pakistan and handed a death sentence in 1991.

But Singh died in 2013 after inmates attacked him in a Lahore prison. His fate inflamed tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed rivals.

Tamba and a second man went on trial for Singh’s death but were acquitted in 2018 due to lack of evidence.

The deputy inspector general of police in Lahore, Ali Nasir Rizvi, said gunmen entered Tamba’s house and shot him. They fled the scene on a motorbike. Officials from Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency reached the site and removed Tamba’s body, taking it to the city's Combined Military Hospital.

Rizvi said a case had been lodged against unidentified assailants but gave no further information about the case, including a possible motive for the attack.

There was slow coverage of Tamba’s death in Pakistan's media. However, Indian outlets were quick to report on the shooting. There was no immediate comment from the Indian authorities.

Singh was arrested in 1990 for his role in a series of bombings in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 people. His family said he was innocent.

Last year, both the United States and Canada accused Indian agents of links to assassination plots on their soil. India dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing in Canada as “absurd."

In the case involving the U.S., India’s foreign ministry said it had set up a high-level committee to investigate the accusations, adding that the alleged link to an Indian official was “a matter of concern” and “against government policy.”

This story has been updated to correct that Tamba's killing occurred Sunday, not Saturday.

FILE - Indian Sikhs shout slogans against Pakistan as they display photographs of Sarabjit Singh, center, a convicted Indian spy who was on Pakistan's death row, died from a head injury after two inmates attacked him with a brick in a Lahore jail, during a protest in Kolkata, India, Thursday, May 2, 2013. A Pakistani police official says an investigation has begun after a man suspected in a fatal attack on an imprisoned Indian national more than a decade ago was shot dead at his home in the eastern city of Lahore. (AP Photo/Bikas Das, File)