<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">Pakistan's government has said that the general elections in the country will go ahead as planned. The statement comes after the country's poll body held a meeting with government and intelligence officials to discuss a spike in violence.</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br />''</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">Caretaker Interior Minister Gohar Ijaz said that a spate of attacks in the southwestern Balochistan province, where Islamabad has fought a decades-long insurgency, posed no security threat. He said, they would provide proper security for the elections.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">General elections are scheduled to be held in Pakistan on the 8th of February.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">In the past few days, a dozen separate attacks have been reported across Balochistan, at least five of which targeted candidates from different political parties. On Tuesday, at least four people were killed in a bomb blast near a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf rally in the provincial capital Quetta. In northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, at least two candidates have been shot dead since the start of January. </span></p>