KARACHI: Assailants shot dead four policemen who were sitting at a roadside eatery for Iftar in the SITE area on Friday in one of the deadliest attacks on the law enforcement agency that has lost nine of its men this year in various acts of terrorism in the city.

A hitherto unknown militant outfit claimed responsibility for the deadly assault.

The attack came on a day when the Karachi police was already put on ‘alert’ in the wake of terrorist attacks in Quetta and Parachinar. Only last month, two policemen were targeted within the remit of the New Town police station.

Counterterrorism officials fear more attacks in Karachi

SITE SP Asif Ahmed Bughio told Dawn that four policemen were about to break their fast at a restaurant located between the Siemens and Habib Bank traffic intersections when two armed motorcyclists emerged there, fired a volley of bullets at them and rode away.

The policemen sustained critical bullet wounds and were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced them dead on arrival, said Police Surgeon Dr Aijaz Khokar.

The victims were identified as Assistant Sub-Inspector Mohammed Yusuf and constables Shabbir, Khalid and Israr.

Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) official Raja Umer Khattab said that the police found a pamphlet from the scene of the crime and it appeared that the assailants threw it there before fleeing.

Sharing details, the official said that the pamphlet was from the so-called spokesperson of a newly-formed outfit, Jamaat-ul-Ansar al-Sharia Pakistan, in which he claimed responsibility of the killing of the policemen.

He said that initial investigations suggested that the assailants were clad in trousers and shirts.

He said the slain policemen had come to the eatery as per their routine for Iftar. He said three of them had just sat there while their fourth colleague was reaching there when the armed pillion-riders targeted them.

The investigators collected 28 spent bullet casings from the crime scene.

CTD official Khattab said that it was the second attack in Karachi which was claimed by the new militant group.

The name of this group first emerged in April when it claimed responsibility for the targeted killing of a retired colonel, Tahir Zia Nagi, in Baloch Colony. The killers had also taken away the laptop computer of the deceased, he added.

Khattab said the Jamaat-ul-Ansar al-Sharia was established in Libya and Tunisia in 2011 but it was reactivated in 2014. This outfit had mostly targeted law enforcers as well as Americans.

The CTD official said in Pakistan militants of various groups had joined hands to form the outfit here.

He feared that more attacks could be possible in the metropolis if concrete steps were not taken to eliminate this group.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2017