Islamabad: Suspected militants bombed a northwestern Pakistan polling station on Saturday two days before crucial national elections that a top electoral official said had no chance of being rigged.
No casualties were reported.
More than a dozen bombs heavily damaged a partially constructed jail that was to have been used as a polling station in Khar, the main town in the Bajur area along the border with Afghanistan, said tribal police officer Mowaz Khan.
There were no casualties in the pre-dawn blasts, Khan said. Khar is less than 30km from the Afghan border in a lawless tribal area where security fears ahead of tomorrow's election are running highest.
The elections are taking place against a backdrop of rising Islamist militancy throughout Pakistan.
Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said 81,000 soldiers had been deployed to back up the 392,000 police assigned to protect the voting, and to maintain order later.
Public disenchantment after eight years of military rule, as well as sympathy for Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in a December 27 gun and suicide attack, seemed likely to propel the opposition to victory over the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party.
On the final day of campaigning, the two top opposition figures - Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif - conferred over lunch yesterday in the eastern city of Lahore. They issued no statement following the meeting.
Human rights organisations and opposition politicians have warned that officials might try to manipulate the results of tomorrow's elections.
An influential US senator said that if that happens, the United States should consider cutting military aid to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, Washington's key ally in the war against terror. Kanwar Dilshad, the No 2 figure in the Election Commission of Pakistan, said his organisation had made sure that candidates will have a fair chance in the voting.
