Cop escorting polio vaccinators martyred

TANK:

Yet another policeman was killed during polio security duty in Tank district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) on Sunday.

On Saturday too a police head constable was killed and a Frontier Constabulary (FC) soldier was seriously injured in an attack as the culprits also snatched their AK-47s.

Police told The Express Tribune that Constable Nazir belt number 463 was deployed for the security of polio teams inside the Basic Health Unit (BHU) in Gira Shahda. Unidentified miscreants opened fire at him when he went out of BHU building to buy something. He died on the spot.

“A man approached him on foot and opened fire at the constable with his pistol,” a police official said.

“Constable Nazir was rushed to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival,” said the official, adding that a large contingent of police was sent to the crime scene where they carried out a door to door search operation.

“Two successful attacks in two days have put police and other security agencies under tremendous pressure,” he said, adding that this attack has been carried out in a far-flung area of Tank near the DI Khan district but the first attack was inside the city proper.

It is worth mentioning here that a five-day polio vaccination campaign has been going on in the district and Sunday was the third day of the campaign.

Local residents blamed that police was even unable to control the outlaws and robbers in the area and people are left to deal with them in their own way by raising the ‘Chga Party’ — a local tribal lashker to give them a chase.

“There is no police patrolling in the area after nightfall providing all sort of criminals the freedom to roam freely and these criminals are not ordinary ones,” said a local elder, adding that even criminals are heavily armed and ready to fight armed lashkers in Tank.

Other local residents shared that there is a widespread panic among the masses who fear that such attacks could turn the December 19 elections into a bloody affair.

The attack is the second of its kind after TTP announced an end to the ceasefire.

It is worth noting here that attacks at police have accelerated since the fall of Kabul to Taliban in Afghanistan.

On Tuesday a police inspector was gunned down by unknown attackers in Bajaur tribal district. Police believed that the Bajaur attack was carried out by militants.

On November 22 a local cleric Qari Muhammad Ilays was killed in a mysterious targeted attack in the same district.Similarly on November 13 two policemen were killed in a roadside bomb attack in the Raghgan area of Bajaur.

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

A the same time, 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 didn’t pay 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. Even on Friday police defused a four kilogram IED planted outside a school. It was believed to be an incident of extortion.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2021.