Militants attack police van in Pakistan, killing six people

At least six police officers, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Asad Mehmood, were killed and four others injured when armed militants targeted a police mobile van on Shakardara Road in Pakistan’s Kohat district on February 24, officials said.

Police sources said the attackers opened fire on the van before setting it ablaze, creating panic in the area. The injured officers were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Security forces and additional police personnel quickly arrived at the scene and launched a cordon-and-search operation in the surrounding area, Caliber.Az reports per foreign media.

“The attack was an ambush in which the police van was badly damaged,” police officials said.

The bodies of the martyred officers have been moved to the hospital for legal formalities. Following the incident, security was placed on high alert in Kohat and neighboring districts, with strict checks enforced at entry and exit points.

Senior police officials vowed to take strong action against those attempting to destabilise law and order, emphasising that the sacrifices of DSP Asad Mehmood and other officials “will not be allowed to go in vain.”

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz strongly condemned the attack. Both leaders paid tribute to DSP Mehmood and the other personnel who “embraced martyrdom,” and expressed condolences to their families.

The president said the martyred personnel had made “huge sacrifices for the motherland,” adding that the “cancer of terrorism, perpetrated under the foreign patronage, was being rooted out from the country,” according to the President’s Secretariat Media Wing.

“The menace of terrorism will be eradicated from the country,” the Prime Minister’s Office Media Wing quoted Shehbaz as saying.

By Sabina Mammadli