PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) local leader, Mukaram Shah, was killed in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack in Swat's Manglawar area on Sunday whereas ANP candidate Syed Masoom Shah was injured in a bomb attack near the venue of a party rally in Charsadda.

In the first attack in Swat an apparently remotely-detonated bomb targeted the vehicle of ANP local leader and member of an anti-Taliban lashkar, Mukaram Shah, in Banjot village  of Manglawar area in Swat. The vehicle was destroyed in the blast.

In the second incident an election candidate of the ANP from PK 21, Syed Masoom Shah, was injured along with three other people in a blast that occurred near the venue of an ANP rally held in Katozai village in Charsadda's Shabqadar tehsil.

The candidate was returning from the venue of an ANP rally when the blast occurred according to local police control room sources.

Masoom Shah was also earlier injured in an attack on an ANP rally in Feb 2008.

Proscribed militant organisation Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant organisation claimed responsibility for both the remotely-detonated attacks. TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan told Dawn.com that the organisation had targeted the candidates due to the secular views of the party.

The Pakistani Taliban had earlier warned of and conducted attacks against what it calls as 'secular parties' including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and ANP.

A candidate belonging to the MQM was killed in Hyderabad last week in an attack claimed by the banned TTP organisation.

Swat valley was ruled by the Pakistani Taliban during a 2007-9 insurgency was cleared out of militancy after the armed forces conducted an operation in the area.

More over two bombs weighing 20 pounds each were defused by security forces in the Bannu district near Peshawar.

In another incident, a bomb planted on a motorcycle was defused near a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost situated in the Chaman area near the Pak-Afghan border.