Caretaker government says it took decision for security reasons after two bomb blasts targeted election offices

Phone services have been suspended in Pakistan as the country voted in a general election marred by allegations of vote rigging and militant attacks.

The caretaker government said phone services, including mobile internet, had been suspended on Thursday for security reasons, after two two bomb blasts by Islamic State targeted election offices in the restive region of Balochistan on the eve of the polls.

Pakistani former PM says case was created to ‘humiliate’ him and Bushra Bibi, who were sentenced to seven years each

A local court in Pakistan has sentenced Imran Khan, the country’s former prime minister, and his wife to seven years each in a case related to their marriage, which it declared “un-Islamic”.

Khan and Bushra Bibi were both last week separately handed 14-year sentences in a corruption case, known as Toshakhana, for illegally selling state gifts.

Former PM, once military’s golden boy, has been sentenced in two separate cases to 10 and 14 years

The script seems eerily familiar. Imran Khan, once the golden boy of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, found himself at the receiving end of not one, but two, damning court verdicts this week.

Sentenced to 10 years in jail on Tuesday, and 14 years on Wednesday, the brazen timing of the convictions in two separate cases made one thing abundantly clear: the military will stop at nothing to keep Khan away from Pakistan’s general election, which will be held next week.

Former Pakistan PM condemned trial as ‘a joke’ amid crackdown on his political party in run-up to election

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for leaking official secrets, amid a crackdown on his political party before the general election due next week.

The sentence is the harshest yet against Khan, who has been held in jail since August after he began to openly criticise the country’s military.

Former prime minister is barred from standing in elections after being jailed for unlawfully selling state gifts while in office

Pakistan’s election body has rejected former prime minister Imran Khan’s nomination to contest the 2024 national elections in two constituencies, officials and his party’s media team said on Saturday.

The 71-year-old former cricket star has been embroiled in a tangle of political and legal battles since he was ousted as prime minister in April 2022. He has not been seen in public since he was jailed for three years in August for unlawfully selling state gifts while in office from 2018 to 2022.