QUETTA: Two police constables and a Levies official were martyred in separate incidents within a span of 24 hours, officials said on Saturday.

In one of the attacks that occurred in the Satellite Town area of the provincial capital, a Balochistan Constabulary constable, Muha­mmad Afzal, was fatally shot.

Police officials said Constable Afzal was on his way to Balochistan University for his duty when he was ambushed by unidentified armed motorcyclists on Makran Road.

“The assailants used automatic weapons, killing him (Constable Afzal) on the spot,” police officials said.

Following the attack, police units promptly arrived at the location, transferring the deceased officer’s body to the civil hospital.

Constable Afzal, who suffered multiple bullet wounds, was deployed on security duty at Balochistan University.

This incident marked the second fatal shooting of a police officer in Quetta within a day.

Another police constable, Muhammad Iqbal, who was on polio campaign duty, was shot and critically injured by armed individuals. Constable Iqbal, originally from Dera Ghazi Khan, later died of injuries in the hospital on Saturday. “We are investigating both the attacks,” a senior police officer said.

In a related incident, a Levies official was martyred by armed assailants in Pishin. The banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pak­istan clai­med responsibility for the attack.

Since the start of the year, militants have targeted security forces, especially those deployed for the protection of anti-polio vaccination teams. On Monday, an explosive device targeted a vehicle carrying police personnel for escorting polio vaccinators in Mamond tehsil.

Six cops were martyred and 28 were wounded in the attack. The truck was carrying cops from the police line for deploying them to perform duty with vaccinators on the first day of the anti-polio campaign when it was hit by a roadside improvised explosive device in the Billoot area.

The incident was the deadliest single act of terrorism against the people involved in vaccination. The incident, the first of its kind in the current year, marks the list of endless series of killing of police and vaccinators.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2024