KARACHI: Policemen, Rangers on target of terrorists
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 4: Seven policemen and a Ranger personnel were killed and 16 policemen and six Rangers personnel were wounded in a series of targeted attacks during the last one and a half years.
In the latest attack on the law enforcers at Gulistan-i- Jauhar police station, a group of more than 12 attackers entered the station and sprayed the officials with bullets. Five policemen died on the spot. The only survivor policeman had gone to offer prayers to a mosque within the police station premises. He opened fire at the attackers, who returned the fire and wounded him.
Official sources said that the attackers did not had any automatic weapon. With TT pistols, they took the staff at gunpoint and snatched the official sub-machine guns from policemen. The attackers opened fire at the policemen and killed all five on the spot, sources added.
Some two weeks back on March 19, a Rangers personnel and a passerby were shot dead in a deadly attack on a Rangers' van beneath the Baloch Colony flyover on Sharea Faisal. Two Rangers personnel and three passersby were also wounded in the incident. The assailants, four in number, who came in a car bearing government registration number, managed to speed away.
Twelve people including Clifton Town Police Officer SP Munir Shaikh, his two guards and three Rangers personnel were wounded and a dozen of vehicles were damaged in a car bomb explosion, which was followed by a grenade attack with an interval of 15 minutes on Jan 15 near the parking area of Holy Trinity Church. A senior police official had stated that police and Rangers personnel were the target as the low intensity grenade was thrown to attract the law enforcement personnel.
On Feb 28, 2003, a police picket next to the US consulate on Abdullah Haroon Road was attacked by a gunman. Two policemen were shot dead and six people, including four policemen, a Rangers official and a civilian, were wounded in the incident. The attacker was later arrested and identified as Zulfiqar Ali. He was awarded death sentence on March 29, this year by an anti- terrorism court.
In three parcel bomb explosions at the offices of home department, crime investigation department and DIG Operations, eight policemen and an employee of a courier service were wounded on Oct 16, 2002. A banned religious group, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, had claimed the responsibility of the blasts through an e-mail, sent to a number of newspapers.
