Security to get tighter for police stations

LAHORE: After attacks on two police stations late Friday night, the city police on Saturday intensified security for police stations across the city.

Orders were issued, from the office of the deputy inspector general (Operations), for setting up barricades and deployment of more security personnel, it is learnt.

DIG Sardar Muhammad Khan admitted while talking to The Express Tribune on Saturday that the security at the police stations had been far-from-perfect. “It will be made better now,” he said. He added that the entire country was under attack and that the law enforcing agencies were being especially targeted. He said that the extremists were targeting the police since it was one of the institutions fighting terrorism. Sardar reiterated that security would be enhanced in and around police stations to minimise the threat of target killing.

Two low-intensity time bombs exploded in two different vehicles of the CIA Lahore Police parked outside the Lytton Road police station, leaving four policemen injured. The second blast at Gulshan-e-Ravi police station claimed the life of a constable and left another seriously injured. The explosions were seven minutes apart.

Some unidentified attackers hurled grenades at the Gulshan Ravi police station. As a result, two constables, Maqsood and Saleem, sustained serious injuries. As the police officials rushed outside, the attackers opened fire at them and fled. The victims were shifted to a local hospital where Saleem succumbed to his injuries, while the condition of Maqsood was stated to be critical by the doctors.

Two FIRs at the Gulshan Ravi police station and Lytton Road police station have been registered against unidentified people. In both the FIRs, SHOs of both police stations are the complainants.

The police have included Sections 353, 324, of the Pakistan Penal Code, 6/7 of Explosive Substance Act and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. In the incident at Gulshan Ravi, the police have also included Section 302 (first-degree murder) of the PPC in the FIR.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2010.