Plan B for ANP candidates: leave the country

They say TTP is breathing down their necks in Karachi and if they lose, they’ll flee.

KARACHI: Some overseas Pakistanis have flown in ahead of polling day to vote. When they board planes to go back abroad, they might just find themselves seated next to candidates of the Awami National Party’s (ANP) Sindh division.

By now, it’s a well-known fact that the party’s candidates in Karachi have received threats from the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has asked them to leave ANP. The party’s general secretary, Bashir Jan, narrowly escaped an attack on his life on April 26 as a bomb exploded at a corner meeting he was to attend in Orangi Town’s Quaid-e-Awan Colony.  Then on May 3, Sadiq Zaman Khattak, who was awarded ANP’s ticket for NA-254, was gunned down along with his four-year-old son Aimal in Korangi. Both incidents have left ANP’s candidates frightened and on edge.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Mohammad Younus Khan, ANP’s candidate for NA-256, said he is waiting for the election results: if he doesn’t win the seat, he says he’ll flee from the country. “I have been receiving direct and indirect threats from the TTP in Karachi. They are asking me to leave ANP and join them, otherwise they will attack me and my family.” The ANP candidate said he had informed law enforcement agencies via his party’s leadership about the threats, but has not been provided any security at all. “I have restricted my political activities only to corner meetings under the security of my own friends.”



Khan hails from Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has been associated with ANP since he was a student. “No place is safe within the country. If I need protection, then I have to move abroad.”

Thirty-four-year-old Abdur Rehman, ANP’s candidate for NA-255, will also fly out of the country if he loses the elections as his life and family are in danger. Rehman escaped a bomb blast at Landhi on April 26. Since then, he has been regularly receiving threatening calls and message on his cell from unidentified people.

“They [the callers] are asking me to leave ANP and also pay them Rs2 million as extortion, otherwise they will carry out more attacks on me and my family. I can’t tell how stressful and upsetting it is when you get threats every day and night.” Rehman has served as the provincial chief of the Pukhtun Student Federation (PkSF), ANP’s student wing.

“I am an activist of ANP and it has always honoured me. I can’t leave my party at any cost but I can change my city and my country.” He informed the Rangers about the threats, but they told him that everything will be fine after the elections. “We have left everything on God’s will and are waiting for the completion of the elections, hoping that threats will end after polling day.” But for right now, Rehman can’t step out of his house for election campaigns.

Prior to the recent threats and attacks, TTP had already claimed responsibility for the killing of ANP’s members and leaders. TTP has also put its pamphlets on mosques and polling stations in the areas of Orangi Town, SITE Town and Manghopir, warning the people not to vote for the ANP, PPP and MQM.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2013.