PESHAWAR: Three policemen and a passerby were killed and three others injured when unidentified gunmen attacked a police party in Pishtkhara area on the outskirts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa capital on Friday.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Cant, Muhammad Faisal confirmed that three policemen and a civilian have been killed and three including two cops and another passerby wounded in the ambush.

“The policemen were breaking their fast at a local restaurant at Landi Akhun Ahmed neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city when unknown assailants opened indiscriminate firing on their van killing three policemen and a waiter of the restaurant on the spot,” he said.

The dead and the injured have been shifted to the Khyber Teaching Hospital.

An official of the KTH hospital said that seven injured were brought to the hospital where two policemen including ASI Noor Muhammad and driver of the police mobile van Baz Muhammad succumbed to their injuries.

The eyewitnesses said that the policemen were staying for Iftar near a roadside restaurant when the attackers riding a car opened fire on them resulting in the death of three cops and wounded four others.

Peshawar police chief Ijaz Ahmed confirmed to the media that policemen were having Iftar out in the open when targetted by the miscreants riding a white car. He also confirmed the number of casualties.

Funeral of the slain policemen was offered at the police lines which was attended by the speaker of the KP Assembly, Asad Qaiser besides the high ranking police officers. Later the bodies of the slain policemen were shifted to their ancestral towns for burial.

Meanwhile, the bomb disposal squad defused a bomb near Khyber police checkpost in Hayatabad. Sources said that two kilograms of homemade explosive material was recovered and seized near the checkpost.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the incident but the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have been wedging an ongoing war against the state.

Earlier in the morning, a police van was blown up with an improvised explosive device (IED) at the centre of the city killing one police official.

Pakistan launched a long-awaited operation in the North Waziristan tribal district last month aimed at eliminating Taliban and other militant bases after a dramatic attack on Karachi airport which marked the end of a faltering peace process with the Pakistani Taliban.

Nearly a million people have been forced to flee from North Waziristan by the offensive.

Analysts have warned that the operation would likely lead to reprisal attacks in Pakistan's major cities at the hands of sleeper cells of militant outfits linked to the Taliban.

Thousands of civilians and security personnel have died since the militants rose up against the Pakistani state more than a decade ago.