Bannu CTD siege continues as talks fail

The situation at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) police station in the Bannu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa remained tense on Monday as talks to resolve the stand-off with militants who were holding several security personnel hostage yielded no results.

Security forces have surrounded the highly fortified cantonment area that houses the interrogation centre in the town, where around 20 fighters from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are holed up after seizing control of the facility.

Furthermore, police and security agencies cordoned off the area and asked residents to stay indoors.

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According to the deputy commissioner of Bannu, schools in the district would remain closed on Tuesday (today). A senior government official said hostages were still being held after a failed operation to free them.

“During the interrogation, some of them snatched guns from the policemen and later took the entire staff hostage,” he told AFP. “They want us to provide them safe passage via a ground route or by air. They want to take all the hostages with them and to release them later on the Afghan border or inside Afghanistan.”

Pakistani officials have asked the government in Kabul to help with the release of hostages, he added. A second government official told AFP that “practically no progress” had been made by Monday evening. The TTP claimed responsibility for the incident and demanded authorities provide safe passage to border areas.

A video posted to social media, which the government official confirmed to be from the scene, showed a group of armed men, with one threatening to kill all the hostages. He said they had at least eight hostages, including police.

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‘Govt refraining from using force’

Talking to The Express Tribune, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Information, Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif said that the government was refraining from using force due to the presence of innocent people inside the CTD compound.

“These people had been arrested from Lakki Marwat and Bannu and shifted to the CTD compound for interrogation. Several of them were held on mere suspicion and they are still inside the building along with hostages,” he said. Therefore, the police were reluctant to use force against the militants.

“We are asking them to surrender but they are refusing it so far. There were arms and ammunition inside the building which these men [have] seized,” he said. “We are repeatedly urging them to surrender but there is a deadlock in this situation,” he added.

Three of the captives managed to escape from the compound after they were freed from lockup and they were re-arrested by police. These three are not militants and many more trapped inside the building are innocent people, who would be killed if the compound is stormed by police and security forces.

In an earlier statement, Saif had said that no demand of the militants would be accepted and asserted that the only option they had was to surrender peacefully and release all the hostages. He added that by releasing videos, the militants were trying to win support of the general public “but it will not work”.

A day earlier, District Police Officer (DPO) Bannu, Dr Iqbal told The Express Tribune that two CTD men had been killed by militants. He said that militants had been kept engaged by means of negotiations and police had a plan which could not be shared with police due to its sensitive nature.

Imran slams govt

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan – whose party governs K-P – criticised the federal government for its failure to curb the growing terrorism threat. “Apart from running our economy to the ground, this imported government has failed to deal with the 50% increase in terrorism in Pakistan with incidents from Chaman to Swat to Lakki Marwat to Bannu,” Imran said.

“They have also failed to deal with attacks from across the international Pak-Afghan border by security forces of a ‘friendly’ Afghan government. While our soldiers, police and local people are giving daily sacrifices with their lives, the worst part is that this increasing terrorist threat and attacks from across our Western border are finding no space in the discourse of this government of a cabal of crooks.”

He alleged that the incumbent government was only interested in “their NRO2 and its preservation. “Therefore, despite the economy tanking they are petrified of holding elections, which is the only way to stabilise the economy through political stabilisation.”

Reacting to Imran’s statement, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said the law and order situation in K-P was the responsibility of the provincial government. “K-P CTD is in a rented building without even a Grade 20 officer posted as CTD deputy inspector general of police. The PTI would always make lame excuses for covering its shortfalls and criminal negligence,” he said.

Attacks in Pakistan are on the rise again since the Afghan Taliban seized control of Kabul last year, however, with most targeting security forces. A shaky months-long ceasefire between the TTP and Islamabad ended last month.

In 2012 and 2013, dozens of heavily armed Taliban fighters freed more than 600 prisoners, including hard-core militants, during two sophisticated overnight attacks on a jail in Bannu.

(WITH INPUT FROM AFP)