Cop on polio duty martyred in Tank firing

FC official also injured in attack claimed by TTP

TANK:

A policeman was martyred and a Frontier Constabulary official suffered serious injuries on Saturday – both deployed for the security of polio teams -- when unidentified men on a motorcycle opened fire at them in Tank district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, an attacked claimed by the local Taliban a day after they called off a ceasefire with the government.

District Police Officer Sahibzada Sajjad told The Express Tribune that Head Constable Iqbal and FC official Taj Khan had been deployed in the Chadrar village on the outskirts of Tank

“The injured has been shifted to hospital where his condition is critical while the body of the policeman has been sent for an autopsy,” the official added.

The DPO said a large number of policemen reached the scene of the attack and cordoned it off, but the attackers managed to escape.

A large number of policemen also surrounded the hospital to prevent any untoward incident. In the past hospitals have been attacked too.

The DPO claimed that there were no threats during the polio vaccination campaign but even then they had beefed up the security for the campaign.

He claimed that a door-to-door search operation was under way in the area.

The attack caused widespread panic among the locals, who feared that similar attacks could occur during the local government elections.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the latest attack and put the death toll at two, according to a statement from spokesman Muhammad Khurasani.

They accused the security forces of killing some of their fighters and violating the one-month truce.

On Friday, the TTP ended a truce mediated with the help of the Afghan Taliban, accusing the government of violating the terms of the agreement.
It is worth noting that attacks at police have accelerated since the fall of Kabul to Taliban in Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, a police inspector was martyred by unidentified gunmen in Bajaur tribal district.
Police believed that the Bajaur attack was carried out by militants.

On November 22 a local cleric Qari Muhammad Ilyas, was martyred in a mysterious targeted attack in the same district.

Similarly on November 13, two policemen were martyred in a roadside bomb attack in Raghgan area of Bajaur.

Several policemen have been martyred in similar attacks in Peshawar, DI Khan, Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi, Lakki Marwat, Bannu and Nowshera districts since August this year.

Since August, there has been a sudden increase in extortion calls from Afghanistan too.

In North Waziristan, several camps of construction companies were set on fire when the owners of the companies did not pay the money despite repeated demands.

An under-construction school was blown up in Tank district when the contractor declined to pay the demanded amount to the militants.

On Friday, the police defused a four kilogram improvised explosive device planted outside a school. It was believed to be an incident of extortion.