Daily Times

Almost a week after police protested against militant attacks in KP, four security personnel were martyred in a targeted attack and a gun-battle with armed factions in the region on Thursday, confirmed police officials.

The first incident occurred in Karak, a southern district of the province, where unidentified assailants on a motorbike gunned down an official of the paramilitary Levies Force, an ill-equipped outfit, earlier in the day.

“Unidentified gunmen shot dead the Levies Force official in the center of the district after he left his home for duty,” Shaukat Khan, a police spokesperson in Karak district, told Arab News over the phone. He informed that a police contingent arrived at the crime scene to gather evidence and trace the killers.

In another incident, three security personnel lost their lives in an exchange of fire with militants in North Waziristan’s Boya village near the border with Afghanistan. “We have information of an exchange of fire near Boya in which three security personnel lost their lives,” Murad Khan, an official deployed at the police control room in the area, told Arab News.

Last week, unidentified gunmen opened fire on police guards escorting a polio vaccination team, killing one of them. No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks so far, but officials in Islamabad say militants associated with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are primarily responsible for violence against the police and security personnel.

Separately, a CTD Thursday revealed that 234 people, including police officials, officers and civilians have been martyred in terror incidents in KP since the start of this year.

Moreover, it said 616 others including civilians have been injured due to attacks by anti-state elements.