Security beefed up: Army deployed in Alipur after al Qaeda group attacks police

FIR lodged against terrorists, search operation under way.

MULTAN:

Troops of the Pakistan Army have been deputed in Muzaffargarh’s Alipur tehsil after Tuesday’s attacks on police officials by al Qaeda’s Ahmed Farooq group. Troops have been deployed in camps in different areas and have also done a flag march to show solidarity with civil society and the civil administration in Alipur.

On the other hand, police have lodged an FIR under sections of the Pakistan Penal Code as well as the Anti-Terrorism Act in Saddar police station against two nominated and five unknown terrorists.

The two constables, Kamran and Irshad, injured in Tuesday’s attack are in stable condition, doctors told The Express Tribune.

Senior police officials from Multan district police revealed that they found maps of oil storage houses belonging to the military and PSO, which the Ahmed Farooq group were planning to attack.

On Tuesday, the police killed two suspected terrorists along the bank of River Chenab in Alipur and the operation is still under way.

Police had expanded its dragnet and raided different places in Muzaffargarh and Dera Ghazi Khan, arresting seven terrorists of al Qaeda’s Ahmed Farooq group.

Three of the arrested terrorists from Dera Ghazi Khan were especially trained from Afghanistan and had claimed responsibility for 30 attacks on the police in the last two years in south Punjab, officials added.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2014.