Pinned down: Four militants killed in Swabi gunfight

A policeman also died in encounter that lasted nearly seven hours.

SWABI:

Four suspected Taliban militants and a policeman were killed and nine others, among them three senior police officials, were injured in a gunfight in Swabi district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Tuesday evening.

The encounter took place in a graveyard in Karnal Sher Kalay, according to DPO Sajjad Khan. He said the police were tipped off about the presence of suspected militants in a house in the village. Subsequently, they raided the house situated in Koolalu graveyard around 3pm, he said, adding that the militants hiding inside opened fire on the police.

The police returned fire and a gunfight ensued that lasted for nearly seven hours, DPO Khan said. The militants fired automatic weapons and hurled hand grenades during the encounter.

Reinforcements were called in from neighbouring Mardan and Peshawar districts. DPO Khan said the gunfight ended with the death of four militants.

However, he wouldn’t say how many militants were hiding in the house and did any of them managed to escape during the encounter. He confirmed that a constable of the Mardan police received a gunshot to his head and died at hospital in nearby Kalu Khan village. He identified the slain constable as Syed Azeem, resident of Mardan’s Katlang village. DPO Khan said nine police officials, including DSP Swabi Muhammad Fayaz, SHO Kalu Khan police station Muhammad Haroon and SHO Parmoli police station Sultan Muhammad, were also injured in the gunfight. Police recovered a huge cache of arms from the house.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2015.