LAKKI MARWAT: Six militants were killed in an intelligence-based operation in the Kurrum Par area of Lakki Marwat district, a police official said on Thursday.
He said a large contingent of police officers, assisted by counterterrorism officials, reached the trans-river area after being informed by local authorities that militants were present there.
“There were reports that a group of militants have assembled in the forest near Abbasa area and are planning to attack a police checkpoint,” the official said.
When the police officers reached the site at around midnight on Wednesday, they came under attack from different directions and a fierce gun battle ensued, the police official said.
He said that when the exchange of fire stopped, the cops launched a search operation in the area and found six bodies along with weapons, hand grenades and ammunition from the site.
Four militants had been identified as Ziaullah, Sifatullah, Mujeebullah and Kalimullah, the official said, adding that they were involved in bomb attacks on law enforcers and subversive and anti-state activities in the region. Their bodies have been shifted to a local hospital.
Security was beefed up in the district after the intense fight, especially in the trans-river belt bordering Karak and Mianwali districts.
The police had recently come under several militant attacks in the remote rural locality of the district, the police official said. “In November last year, six policemen embraced martyrdom when militants had attacked a van of the Abbasa police post,” he said.
Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2023
