Pakistan elections: US worried over people affiliated to LeT

Washington, July 21: The US has expressed its worry over presence of individuals who have affiliations with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the July 25 general elections in Pakistan and has told Islamabad about it, the state department said, according to Pakistan's leading daily Dawn.

The LeT is an internationally sanctioned terror organisation.

The state department, however, said in its statement that it was satisfied with the Pakistan Election Commission's act of rejecting the registration of Milli Muslim League (MML) last moth "citing its linkages to LeT", the daily, which has a copy of the statement, added.

The statement also said that the state department had amended the Foreign Terrorist Organisation status of the LeT in April to include MML as a Lashkar alias, Dawn reported.

"We have repeatedly expressed our concerns to the Pakistani government about LeT, including the participation of LeT-affiliated individuals in the elections," Dawn quoted from the statement.

The state department had previously emphasised that the electoral process needed to be continued despite recent terror attacks targeting senior political leaders in the poll-bound country.

Pakistan has seen a series of terror strikes in the run-up to the July 25 elections in which even a few candidates from secular parties have been killed.

The most devastating attack occurred in Balochistan in southwestern Pakistan on July 13 where over 150 people, including an election candidate, were killed. It was the third terror attack ahead of the election day to derail the entire electoral process.

In an earlier statement, the State Department had stressed the need to continue the electoral process despite recent terrorist attacks targeting senior Pakistani politicians, the Dawn report added.

The European Union also expressed its concerns over the Pakistan elections and appealed to the government to ensure that elections go safely in all corners of the country, the Dawn report said, adding that Japan, too, hoped the same.