No delay in Pakistan polls after security meeting

Pakistan's elections will go ahead as planned, the interior minister said on Thursday, after the country's vote body held a meeting with government and intelligence officials to discuss a spike in violence.

Polls in the South Asian nation are often marred by violence, with candidates and rallies targeted by militant groups as well as over personal vendettas.

"Elections will take place on the 8th of February," Gohar Ijaz, the caretaker interior minister, said.

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He added that a spate of attacks in the southwestern Balochistan province, where Islamabad has fought a decades-long insurgency, posed "no security threat".

"We will provide proper security for the elections," Ijaz said.

In the past few days, a dozen separate attacks have been reported across Balochistan, at least five of which targeted candidates from different political parties.

On Tuesday, at least four people were killed by a bomb blast near a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rally in the provincial capital Quetta.

"Security is currently on high alert, all our teams are carrying out extra patrols, snap-checks are also being done, everyone knows that there is a threat in the entire province," said Tariq Jawad, a police official in Quetta, on Thursday.

Rich mineral deposits in Pakistan's largest but poorest province have been at the centre of Islamabad's battle with ethnic Baloch separatist factions there.

Fifteen political figures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have faced death threats from militants over the past two months, a senior officer from the Counter Terrorism Department said.