How K-P police fared in anti-terror fight

Extortion goes up along with terrorism, targeted attacks in 2022

PESHAWAR:

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Police established 18 check posts on the hilltops to prevent the movement of terrorists in the year 2022 and also arrested 806 terrorists including 90 with head money on their arrest while 196 were shot dead in encounters in 2022, said the annual performance report of the force issued here on Friday.

Talking to journalists, Additional IGP Muhammad Ali Baba Khel said that it was true that there was an increase in extortion cases but police had also launched a full crackdown against extortionists.

He said that due to timely action on the part of police several terrorism bids had been foiled and several terror rings had been busted.

Police arrested 62 kidnappers involved in kidnapping for ransom. During this time a total of 81 incidents of extortion occurred and 158 extortionists were arrested.

As many as 1,877 search and strike operations were conducted in Malakand Division while 478 intelligence-based operations were also carried out by law enforcement agencies along with security forces.

During these operations, several terrorist commanders have been eliminated and elements wanted in connection with militancy and extortion were arrested.

Similarly, a total of 20,601 search and strike operations were conducted under the National Action Plan (NAP) and a huge number of 129,637 suspects were taken into custody.

Similarly, 22,416 small arms and 511,447 cartridges were taken into official possession by police during these operations.

Furthermore, 356,958 houses were checked and 11,604 FIRs were registered over the lack of filing tenancy forms and 1,196 FIRs were registered against hotels for lack of guests' verification. Similarly, 120,459 suspects were arrested during 79,940 snap checkings across the province and 15,786 weapons and 433,786 cartridges were also recovered in these checkings.

The provincial police have also made breakthroughs in operations against narcotics through narcotics eradication teams (NETs) and carried out successful operations against drug sellers by recovered 903.645 kilograms of ice drug, 1,279.431 kilograms of heroin, 18,841.834 kilograms of hashish, 1,381.3 kilograms opium and 12,883.52 liters of liquor.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2022.