Two armed men killed a policeman standing guard outside a Hindu temple in Peshawar on Sunday.
Constable Ghulam Muhammad was on duty outside Pir Ratan Nath temple while his other friends were inside the building when two motorcyclists opened fire at him.
He was taken to Lady Reading Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
“It appears to be a militant attack. The gunmen killed the policeman on duty outside the temple and then escaped,” said Faisal Mukhtar, a senior police official, claiming it was an attack on non-Muslims and their places of worship.
Other police officials, however, said it was not an attack on the temple, instead the policeman was the target.
Ghulam Muhammad’s guard master tried chasing the attackers for several miles to Chargo Kallay, but both the motorcyclists disappeared.
The police launched a door-to-door search operation in the village. “The operation began around 9am and continued till 2pm during which several people were detained, but were released after an interrogation,” an official of Hashtnagari police station told The Express Tribune.
The last rites of the slain policeman were offered in Malik Saad Police Lines on Sunday afternoon and the body was sent to Yousafabad for burial.
This marks the third incident in which an on-duty policeman was killed outside a place of worship.
In November last year, Constable Ataullah was gunned down outside the Assembly of God church in Swati Gate by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike.
In July, police constable Shahzad Gul was also shot dead outside the same church in a similar manner.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 27th, 2014.
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