PESHAWAR, May 12: A wrong planning by junior police officers and shortage of staff and safety equipment have left four policemen’s families in miseries in Karak district.

Official sources told this reporter that the junior police officers stationed in Banda Daud Shah tehsil raided a hideout in the Shagai village in the Terri police station jurisdiction on April 22 without having a word with their seniors about the plan or provision of logistic support. They also lacked professional approach to handle the situation without incurring losses to the police department, the sources said.

The station house officer of Terri and DSP Banda Daud Shah constituted a raiding party to arrest an absconder wanted in murder cases, but they did not take into confidence their seniors for unknown reasons, said the sources.

The raiding party asked the absconder to surrender, but he refused and opened fire injuring seven policemen.

Four policemen died of excessive bleeding while lying on the spot for several hours without any help. They could have been saved, but the officers who led the raid had made no arrangements to tackle any emergency situation, or call for reinforcement from the district headquarters.

One of the four victims, Hakim Khan, left behind three daughters, while Imam Shah had only one son. Badshah Jan had a disabled son, while the children of Eid Rehman were very young to be either employed in the police department or give them any other job to earn livelihood.

The police sources said that when the DPO was informed about the encounter in Shagai, he rushed to the spot along with a heavy contingent, but it was too late by then.

The sources said that the victims’ families were already living in miserable condition owing to the low salary-structure of the police department despite of high risks at every turn, while the loss of the families’ heads rendered them crippled.

District police officer Mohammad Ayub Khan, while talking to Dawn on telephone, said the officials had neither adopted any precautions nor taken the seniors into confidence before taking on such a high risk operation.

The district police also experience a host of problems of staff and logistics as they have to look after two national highways running across the district.

The government had sanctioned about 180 additional staff for the district with the opening of Indus Highway, but it could never materialize, he said.

The DPO said that the police department had announced huge monetary compensation for the victims’ families, besides ensuring to give their children free education and arranging for the medical treatment for a victim’s disabled son.

The official sources said that the district police also faced problems of vehicles and there were no armoured personnel carriers or ambulances.

Another source said that one of the two ambulances in the DHQ hospital, Karak, broke down while shifting the victims and the injured to hospitals, while the other was out of order for a long time.