Why did mainstream media ignore the Mastung bombing?

KARACHI: As Pakistan waited with bated breath for the return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz, to face arrest over corruption charges, something else took place on the same day.

A suicide bomber killed more than 128 people and injured over 200 people at the Balochistan Awami Party’s (BAP) campaign rally in Mastung on Friday. Among the dead was BAP candidate Nawabzada Siraj Raisani. The Islamic State (IS) took responsibility of the attack, reports Dawn.

On thursday, another bomb blast took place in Bannu, targeting the election rally of  Akram Khan Durrani,  a Muttahida Majlis Amal candidate (MMA), in which four people were killed. A few days prior to this, Haroon Bilour, Awami National Party’s leader and candidate for the upcoming general elections was also killed in a bomb blast along with nearly 20 others, reports Geo.

Yet, on all mainstream TV channels yesterday, there was no mention of the Mastung attack, which is being termed as the deadliest attack to take place in Pakistan since the APS massacre that claimed the lives of 144 children.

Instead, what was being aired were live updates of Nawaz Sharif’s plane ride from Heathrow Airport in London to Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore. For several hours, news channels all across the country were debating and discussing Sharif’s every move, whether he would resist the arrest or come out of the plane willingly.

Meanwhile, the death toll at Mastung was increasing by the minute.

All political figureheads were quick to condemn the blast on Twitter.

Many took to Twitter to convey their dismay at the way Mastung was being sidelined on all leading TV channels.