PESHAWAR: The election campaign is taking a heavy toll on the Awami National Party as militants continue attacks on its leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The killing of a leader of the ANP in Swat and a bomb attack on a candidate for a provincial assembly seat on Sunday is a grim reminder that the party had long been on the hit list of the Taliban.

Taliban militants targeted an ANP election rally in Bannu on April 1 in which two people were killed and Adnan Wazir, a pro-ANP candidate for the provincial assembly, was injured.

Eight people were injured in an attack on Arbab Ayub Jan, a former minister and National Assembly candidate, near Peshawar last week and there appears no end in sight to the Taliban’s ruthless campaign.

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been warning people to stay away from the ANP’s rallies and it reiterated the threat only three days ago as the election campaign is heating up.

The party’s chief, Asfandyar Wali Khan, and former interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao have survived suicide attacks.

The TTP had killed a former MPA of the MQM in Karachi and recently they shot dead its election candidate in Hyderabad.

The ANP has criticised the silence of political parties and media over an endless killing spree of its leaders and said the barrage of attacks was a part of a conspiracy aimed at paving way for the success of pro-militant forces in the general elections.

“It appears to be a ploy of hidden forces to keep the ANP away from the election and facilitate candidates fielded by pro-Taliban parties. The plan seems to be a replay of the 2002 elections,” the ANP’s information secretary, Senator Zahid Khan, told Dawn on Sunday.

“There will be no looking back as we want peace at any price,” he said.

The militants had stepped up attacks at a time when the government had withdrawn security from the party’s candidates. “All our candidates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa risked assassination by the Taliban. Already, we have lost 750 workers and leaders to Taliban’s bullets,” he said.

Asked if they would restrict movement of the party’s candidates in the election, he said the ANP would adopt a strategy to cope with the situation and would never allow anyone to postpone the election.

Mr Khan said the party had been alarmed by the killing of its leader in Swat and wounding of a provincial assembly candidate in Charsadda on Sunday.

“The criminal silence of political parties and the media is surprising. We feel that conspiracies are being hatched to isolate the ANP,” he said.

“We are writing a letter to the Election Commission tomorrow (Monday) to demand security for our leaders. We are also planning to discuss the issue in a Senate meeting the same day,” he added.

The ANP’s provincial chief, Senator Afrasiab Khattak, said the sacrifices of his party’s workers would not be in vain and lead to establishment of peace.

“We call upon the interim government to ensure safety of our candidates.”

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the former information minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said the government was not serious about holding the elections in a free, fair and transparent manner.

He paid tribute to party workers for braving militants and urged them to be steadfast in the fight against militants.