Police face surge in attacks

Constable martyred in third hit in Lahore in a week

LAHORE:

A surge in armed attacks on the police in Punjab has been observed with the third incident reported within a week in Lahore, of which two proved fatal.

Police Constable Ghulam Rasool was shot dead by an unidentified attacker in the Tibbi area on Wednesday night.

The victim was posted at the Judicial Wing Police Lines and a resident of Ittehad Park in Shahdara.

He was standing at Peer Darbar when a man shot him. He suffered bullet injuries and was shifted to the Mayo Hospital, where he died.

Heavy contingents of police rushed to the spot, collected forensic evidence and recorded statements of eyewitnesses.

His funeral prayer of the deceased was offered at Qila Gujjar Singh Police Lines on Thursday in which Corps Commander Lieutenant General Amir Raza, IG Dr Usman Anwar, CCPO Bilal Siddique Kamyana and a large number of other people participated.

The victim belonged to Sharaqpur and is survived by a son and two daughters.

This was the third incident in which a policeman was targeted in Lahore.

Four days back, Sub-Inspector Muhammad Arsahd had been shot dead by a motorcyclist.

The victim was posted in investigations wing of Baghbanpura police. He lived in Missri Shah and was returning home at night after work when the motorcyclist intercepted and opened fire at him. After shooting at the victim from a distance, following which he suffered an injury and fell down, then attacker approached near him and again fired two shots after stopping his motorbike.

According to the police, the attacker also recorded the incident on video.

A few days earlier, another constable posted at Baghbanpura police station had been injured in an armed attack.

Initial investigations and eyewitnesses accounts suggested that the pattern of the attacks on Ghulam Rasool and Muhammad Arshad was similar with one motorcyclist involved in both incidents.

The development comes following a wave of targeted attacks on the police witnessed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwah during the past two years.

According to a report by the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA), only one attack on law-enforcement agencies had been reported in Punjab in 2022 as compared to 270 in K-P.

The worsening situation can be gauged from the fact that over two dozen targeted attacks on police have occurred in Punjab in just four months during the ongoing year.

Since last year, Punjab Police had been facing a serious threat of terrorist attacks on provincial border posts.

The checkpoints came under multiple attacks in Mianwali, Bhakkar, Rahim Yar khan and Dera Ghazi Khan districts.

A Punjab Highways Patrol (PHP) post was attacked around a dozen times by suspected terrorists. An official was killed in one of the attacks.

The day Constable Ghulam Rasool was martyred, five policemen deployed at Jhangi post in DG Khan were injured in a terrorist attack.

The Punjab Police had issued an alert of attacks on border posts on the basis of an intelligence report.

According to sources, the report had warned that the banned TTP had established a ‘wing’ to attack police posts in the provincial border areas.

A senior official said the tactics were akin to Taliban attacks in K-P, Afghanistan and the tribal region. For past two decades, the terrorists have been targeting security checkpoints in remote areas in a bid to take over them.

In the urban areas, cops moving around alone were targeted. The official warned that it appeared that the terrorists were shifting the theatre of their activities to Punjab.

Published in The Express Tribune May 3^rd, 2024