Pakistan: Three police personnel killed in terrorist attack in Tank

ISLAMABAD: Three police personnel, including a station house officer (SHO), were killed and five others including a deputy superintendent of police sustained injuries after a terrorist attack on police in the Kari Shah Noor area of Pakistan's Tank, Pakistan-based Dawn reported.

The police spokesperson said that DSP Chan Shah was leading a police party on Saturday to arrest the kidnappers of a woman in Shah Noor village when unidentified assailants opened fire on the vehicle. The police spokesperson said that attackers opened fire at the police after seeing the police team, according to Dawn report.

According to a police spokesperson, SHO Shaheed Mureed Akbar, Abdul Ali Khan, and two constables, Wahab and Mohammad Alam were killed in the attack. He further said that five police personnel, including DSP Chan Shah, constables Ishfaq, Wafaq and Hidayat of Elite Force and constables Riaz and Ikram of district Tank, were injured.

He said that the injured police personnel were taken to Tank Hospital. Soon after the ambush, a heavy contingent of police, including the Quick Response Force, arrived at the crime site, Dawn reported.

Dera Ismail Khan Regional Police Officer Nasir Mehmood Satti said that the police and security forces started operations against the terrorists. He said that such cowardly attacks could not demoralise the police.

Earlier on November 7, two police personnel were killed and three others were injured in a terror attack at an oil and gas company in Dera Ismail Khan region of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan-based Geo News reported.

The deputy superintendent of police (DSP) said that the terrorist attack took place in the Drazanda tehsil of Dera Ismail Khan, claiming the lives of two policemen and injuring three others. He further said that one of the policemen was in critical condition.

According to the DSP, police personnel were deployed for the security of the oil company. Pakistan has witnessed a rise in terror activities, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, since the ceasefire between the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistan government ended in November last year.

In a report released in October, the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) said that 386 security personnel lost their lives in the first nine months of 2023, reaching an eight-year high, according to a Geo News report.

In the third quarter of 2023, some 445 people were killed and 440 others were injured from 190 terror attacks and counter-terror operations, Geo News reported. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan remained the prime centres for violence, accounting for nearly 94 per cent of all fatalities and 89 per cent of attacks, including incidents of terrorism and security forces operations recorded during this time.