Two cops martyred in Mingora attack

TTP claims responsibility in message on social media

SWAT:

Two policemen were martyred while a security guard sustained severe injuries in a gun attack by an unidentified man in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Mingora.

Mingora City Deputy Superintendent of Police Amjad Khan told The Express Tribune that an unidentified miscreant opened fire at two police constables deployed near Sabzi Mandi. As a result, DSP Amjad said, constables Ashraf Ali and Umra Khan were martyred on the spot.

The security guard of a private bank was also critically injured in the attack.

Eyewitnesses said that a masked man suddenly appeared and opened fire at both the constables and fled.

The injured was rushed to the hospital where his condition is stated to be critical.

“Both the policemen had been deployed for security at the vegetable and fruits market,” a police official said, adding that a large contingent of police reached the site and launched a door-to-door search operation.

Several people had been arrested on suspicion and shifted to the local police station for interrogation.

Meanwhile, the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack in a message on social media.

The entire district has been in the grip of widespread panic after the reemergence of terrorists in Swat. In the last one month, terrorists have clashed with local residents and police in which two policemen were injured and a local volunteer was killed in the Sangota area of Swat.

Similarly, two terrorists were killed in an encounter with the Counter Terrorism Department in the mountains of Swat.

Local residents are under the impression that terrorists have resettled under an agreement in Malakand and they are going to impose their violent ideology in the region at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, the last rites of the slain policemen were offered in Mingora Police Lines with full guard of honour.

Later, the coffins were sent to the ancestral graveyards for burial.