...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
late Saturday, police said, ahead of next week's historic elections.
The two bombs went
kaboom!within 20 minutes of each other near an office of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement
...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead...
(MQM) in the middle class neighborhood of Azizabad, senior police official Saleem Akhtar Siddiqui told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"We can confirm that three people have died in the twin blasts while 35 have been maimed. The maimed have been admitted to different hospitals," said Suresh Kumar, secretary of the health department of Sindh province.
No MQM workers were identified among the dead and maimed, Siddiqui said.
A front man for MQM, Qamar Mansoor, said a rally had been planned in the area hit by the Saturday blasts, but would now be postponed and a day of mourning observed instead.
Pakistain will elect its new government for the next five years in polls on May 11. The election of the national and regional assemblies will mark the first time a civilian government has completed a full term and handed over to another, in a country that has been ruled by the military for half its existence.
Campaigning has been marred by Taliban threats and attacks, which have killed 66 people since April 11, according to an AFP tally.
On Friday, national assembly candidate Saddiq Zaman Khattak was rubbed out along with his three-year-old son after praying in a mosque in the city of Karachi.
Khattak was a businessman and a candidate for the Awami National Party (ANP), the leading secular party in Pakistain's ethnic Pashtun northwest.
Earlier on Saturday a candidate running for parliament was injured when his vehicle hit a roadside kaboom in the troubled northwest, officials said.
In a separate incident, an election office of the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer...
's Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) party was attacked in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
.