Hangu district: Five dead in clash between security forces and militants

Deceased include three policemen, a pedestrian and one militant.

PESHAWAR:

Three policemen, a pedestrian and one militant were killed in a clash, which ensued when two policemen were kidnapped by armed militants in Karbogha, in Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

DPO Abdul Rasheed Khan told The Express Tribune on Monday that two policemen were on a routine security drive, escorting a vehicle of a bank in a private car when they were intercepted by militants in Karbogha. “The militants were armed. They took the police officials, but left the money untouched,” he said.

The police in Hangu cordoned off the area and followed the militants into Dalan, a mountainous area with dense forests leading to North Waziristan.

Police forces then surrounded the militants and engaged in a shootout, which lasted for almost four hours. “There were eight militants. The kidnapped policemen managed to escape during the shootout but we lost three other policemen and one civilian was killed,” the DPO told The Express Tribune.

The kidnapped policemen were identified as Tazeem Dad and Sibghatullah.

Sources said that the pedestrian, identified as Nazeer, was a member of a local peace committee. However, police officials maintained that the identity of the militant could not be ascertained.

The rest of the militants managed to escape and a search is underway to capture them dead or alive, said officials.

Security had been put on high alert in Hangu and the nearby areas in the month of Muharram.

However, militants still managed to fire more than a dozen rockets into the district injuring a woman and three police officials. Earlier in May, a suicide bomber rammed an explosive laden vehicle into the DCO’s office killing more than 35 people.

Officials have termed the recent acts of terrorism as a reaction to the military operations in the bordering Orakzai and Kurram Agencies.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2011.