Quetta violence: Four policemen killed in targeted attack

The policemen were on two motorcycles on their routine patrol along the railway track.

QUETTA:

Gunmen shot dead four policemen in a targeted attack in a residential neighbourhood of Quetta on Saturday. The attack took place on Saryab Road, near Sardar Musa Colony, according to police officials.

“Four policemen, riding on two motorcycles, were patrolling a railway track when gunmen opened fire on them,” said Qazi Wahid, the deputy inspector general of police (Operations).

“All of them died on the spot,” he added. “The gunmen escaped from the scene after the attack.”

Another police official told The Express Tribune that the police patrol was ordered at the request of railway authorities. Railway tracks have been repeatedly attacked in Balochistan where a tribal insurgency has become more deadly since 2006.

Police and paramilitary Frontier Corps have mounted a manhunt for the killers. Elsewhere, authorities have ordered law enforcers to be extra vigilant. The bodies of the victims were shifted to the Bolan Medical Hospital where they were identified as Razar Muhammad, Hafeezur Rehman, Sarfaraz and Abdul Kareem – all of them constables in the provincial police.

Funeral prayers for the slain cops were offered at the Police Line in Quetta and the bodies were later handed over to the heirs for burial.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2012.