A policeman on Tuesday embraced martyrdom while protecting a Sikh healer when unidentified assailants fired gunshots at his clinic located in the suburbs of Peshawar.
Constable Farhad, a 40-year-old ex-serviceman, lost his life when the gunmen opened fire on Guljit Singh’s clinic in Baghbanan area falling within the limits of Inquilab police station. However, the Sikh healer remained unhurt.
Peshawar police chief Syed Ashfaq Anwar said security was provided to the Sikh community.
“The policeman sacrificed his life and the Sikh healer remained safe in the attack,” he added.
The city’s police chief continued that an investigation was under way and it would be premature to say anything about the incident.
The Sikh community has expressed its concern over the attack.
Baba Gurpal Singh, a Sikh leader in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, told The Express Tribune that in the last few years, around a hundred families of their community have migrated from Peshawar because of terrorism, unemployment, and targeted killings.
“A few of them have settled in Punjab families while most of them have shifted to the US, Canada and Europe,” he added.
Gurpal said 18 Sikhs were killed in the last few years and 11 injured in terrorist attacks.
“We can only demand better security measures and a favourable environment from the government.”
K-P Counter Terrorism Department chief Shaukat Abbas had previously claimed that the international terrorist organisation, Daesh, was involved in the killing of the religious minorities in the province i.e. the Sikh and Christian communities and other important targets but its network had been eliminated from Peshawar last year.
Even the “last” terrorist of the network was killed in the year 2023 in Peshawar.
However, the attack on Tuesday has rung alarm bells across the province.
According to K-P CTD’s data, there has been a marked increase in the incidents of terrorism this year.
Only from January to March, there have been 131 terrorist attacks in K-P and its tribal districts
Over 60 of them were on the police, while the southern districts witnessed the highest number of them.
In June last year, unidentified motorcyclists shot dead a Sikh trader, identified as Manmohan Singh, in Peshawar’s Kakshal neighbourhood.
K-P Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur condemned the attack on the policeman assigned to the security of a citizen belonging to the Sikh community in Peshawar.
He expressed his grief over the martyrdom of the constable.
In a statement, the K-P chief minister offered his condolences to the family of the martyred policeman and prayed to the Almighty grant them fortitude to bear this loss.
Gandapur directed the authorities concerned to take necessary measures to improve the security of religious minorities.
He pledged that the elements involved in the attack would be arrested and brought to justice.
The K-P CM assured the family of the martyr that the provincial government would not leave them alone in this hour of need and support them in every possible way.
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