Four policemen killed in Karachi targeted attack

KARACHI:

Gunmen shot dead four policemen and injured a bystander in a targeted attack in the Korangi neighbourhood of the metropolitan city on Wednesday.

Witnesses said the policemen were having lunch at a roadside restaurant around 2:15pm when the gunmen targeted them. “The policemen used to have Nihari at the restaurant daily,” Adnan Ahmed, a worker at the restaurant, told The Express Tribune. “The gunmen opened fire at them minutes after they parked their patrol van and started taking meal,” he added.

All four policemen died on the spot while the gunmen collected the official submachine guns (SMGs) of the slain cops before fleeing the scene unidentified and unchallenged, another witness said. Police and Rangers contingents reached the site and threw a security cordon as rescuers shifted the casualties to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

“They were shot in the head at a close range,” said a source at the medico-legal section of the hospital. “The injured bystander is, however, in a stable condition,” he added. The slain policemen were identified as 45-year-old ASI Aqeel Ahmed and three constables – Jamil, 46, Anwar Hussain, 35 and Akhtar, 42. The passerby was identified as Atif Saghir, 32.

SP Korangi Division Afnan Amin told The Express Tribune that three gunmen carried out the deadly attack. “However, they were probably covered by other accomplices,” he said.

SP Amin said the police had recovered only five empties of 9mm pistols from the crime scene. “A case has been registered against unidentified assailants while further investigation is under way,” he said, adding that the police were also trying to draw sketches of the gunmen with the help of witnesses.

At least 242 policemen have been killed since the launch of the surgical operation in Karachi in September 2013. Around 331 terrorists, 38 kidnappers, 10 extortionists and 806 robbers have also been killed during 3,569 encounters in the targeted raids.


Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2015.