ANKARA, March 28: Six people were killed and dozens injured in election-related violence over the weekend as Turks turned out to vote in local elections on Sunday, Anatolia news agency reported.
Much of the violence centred on Kurdish areas in the east and southeast of the country. In the southeastern town of Siirt, which sent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to parliament a year ago, the brother of a local candidate from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was killed late Sunday in a brawl with members of the social democratic People's Party (SHP), Anatolia said.
In Yuksekova, in the southeast, a candidate for village headman was gunned down and another person injured. In Igdir, in the east, one man was killed and two injured when masked men opened fire on a bus taking voters to a polling station on Sunday morning.
In southeastern Malatya, a fight between two candidates running for the job of Muktar (district overseer) left one of them dead and five other injured. In the southeastern town of Batman, another brawl between AKP and SHP supporters left eight people hurt, Anatolia said.
In eastern Agri province, one person was killed and seven injured when two families got involved in an election row, Anatolia said. And in Denizli, in the west of the country, a member of the AKP is alleged to have opened fire on the local party headquarters of the People's Republican Party (CHP), wounding some 10 of its members, one seriously, Anatolia reported. -AFP
