One terrorist was killed while two others were injured in an exchange of fire with the Peshawar Police Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and security forces in the Mattani area on the fringes of Peshawar on Tuesday.
Addressing a news conference at CTD Headquarters, Peshawar CTD SSP Kashif Aftab Abbasi maintained that they had received information about the presence of some outlaws in the Mattani area of the provincial capital, who were planning to carry out attacks in the city.
He said that the Peshawar CTD Police and security forces jointly raided the terrorists’ compound after which they opened fire on the police. In the retaliatory fire, one terrorist was killed while two were injured whereas their three accomplices managed to escape taking advantage of darkness.
The SSP told the media that the outlaws belonged to a terrorist organisation – Shina Group – and had been wanted in various criminal activities, including attack on Adizai check post, extortion, wall chalking and distribution of pamphlets for banned outfits.
He said that the city had been saved from a major disaster, adding that action was being taken against the terrorist outfit.
The CTD also claimed to have recovered 5kg explosives, Kalashnikov and hand grenades from the terrorists. It maintained that they had attacked a customs squad on May 29 in Mattani area, injuring four of their personnel.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) registered a decline of 11.9 per cent in incidents of terrorism during the month of April 2023 due to the strategy of prevention through detection by the CTD.
According to CTD’s four months progress report – January to April – incidents of terrorism had declined by 11.9 per cent in April.
In the first four months of 2023, a total of 309 cases of terrorism were registered out of which 213 were traced and 124 arrests were made.
Around 54 proclaimed offenders (POs) including 15 carrying head money were arrested as compared to 42 POs in the same period in the year 2022.
Meanwhile, 711 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) were carried out in which 158 terrorists were arrested, the report said.
In 39 encounters with terrorists, 62 of them were neutralised and 53 attempts of committing terrorism were prevented through IBOs wherein heavy recoveries of weapon and ammunition (53 cases) were made and 81 accused were taken into custody.
The recoveries included 47kg of explosives, 150 hand grenades, one suicide jacket, 105 arms and 2,822 rounds of different bores.
Conviction in eight cases was secured wherein 11 terrorists have been convicted as a result of successful investigation.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 7th, 2023.
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