Policemen carry the coffin of one of the seven colleagues killed in Kohat yesterday.
PESHAWAR: Gunmen killed seven police in an ambush attack in Taliban-plagued northwest Pakistan, officials said yesterday. The target of the late Friday attack was top police officer Dilawar Bangash who “survived with minor injuries” two officials said.
Bangash was heading from the region’s main city of Peshawar to the garrison town of Kohat near the lawless tribal region when the attack occurred.
“More than a dozen gunmen opened fire from both sides of the road” as Bangash’s vehicle, which was escorted by another police van, crossed the militant infested town of Matani, senior police official Shafiullah Khan said.
“Militants who were armed with light and heavy weapons opened fire killing six police officials in the lead police van,” Khan said. Three others were wounded including Bangash who was travelling in the other vehicle.
The gunmen also attacked a police rescue team killing one policeman and wounding two more, he said. “The firing was sudden and intense, the exchange of gunfire continued for quite sometime, but Allah saved my life,” Bangash said.
Another police official Fazal Naeem said police retaliated but he had no details on possible militant casualties because the incident took place around midnight.
Northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is on the frontline of a nearly seven-year Taliban insurgency and borders the semi-autonomous tribal belt where Pakistani troops are fighting against homegrown militants.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack follows the May 11 election in Pakistan, won by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, giving him an historic third term as head of the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-N party.
Former cricket star Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has said it will form a coalition with the right-wing religious Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the secular Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Agencies
