Brazen assault: Four policemen shot dead in Quetta

Both Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claim responsibility for the attack

QUETTA:

Four policemen were gunned down in Quetta on Thursday amid reports of two separate terrorist organisations claiming responsibility for the brazen assault. The cops were sitting in a room at a petrol station situated on Munir Mengal Road of the provincial capital’s Satellite Town.

“Four attackers barged into the room, opened fire on the policemen and then escaped,” SSP Operations Waheedur Rehman Khattak told the media, adding that the police had recovered 25 rounds of 9mm pistols from the crime scene.

Constables Abdul Nafay and Inayatullah died on the spot while constables Sadiq and Ismail succumbed to their injuries on way to the hospital.

“Police have tightened security at checkpoints across the city and the hunt for the killers is under way,” said Khattak. Police and Frontier Corps personnel have rounded up 48 suspects from Quetta’s Lower Karaiz and Ghafoor Town areas for investigation.

Meanwhile, both the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have claimed responsibility for the attack. Twenty policemen have lost their lives in targeted killings or suicide attacks across the city in the past 24 days. Thursday’s attack was the fifth this year.

Railway track blown up

Akbar Bugti Express en route from Quetta to Lahore narrowly escaped an explosion soon after it crossed into Sibi.

The Balochistan Railway police said unidentified culprits had planted explosives on the railway track. They exploded soon after the train had passed and was out of harm’s way.

Two feet of the railway track was damaged in the blast, but it was later repaired and the train service resumed. Bolan Mail had been stopped in Sibi and Akbar Bugti Express at the Mithri railway station after the blast.

During their search of the vicinity of the explosion, FC personnel caught a suspect hiding in the bushes. No terrorist group, however, has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Weapons confiscated

The FC and intelligence agencies confiscated a huge cache of arms and ammunition from the hideouts of banned organisations in a search operation in Panjgur.

A spokesman for the FC said the paramilitary force destroyed the hideouts of the militants and seized 13 hand grenades, 12 rifles, four RPG-7 launchers, nine home-made bombs, seven sub-machine guns, 21 kilos of ammunition, a scope, communication tools, anti-state literature, 400 different types of rounds and other explosive material.

Meanwhile, the FC has picked up two suspected militants from the Gawal Ismailzai area of Zhob, and 15 Afghan migrants living without legal documents from different parts of Quetta.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2016.