Two police constables were martyred in Sindh’s Shikarpur district on Wednesday after unknown assailants opened fire on them, a statement from the Sindh Inspector General’s (IGP) operations room said.

According to the statement issued by the operations room to Dawn.com, the two constables, identified as Altaf Brohi and Abdul Qadir Qallati, were “in civil dress” and eating at a restaurant in the Garhi Taigo area when unidentified suspects approached the restaurant and shot them before fleeing the scene. Both constables embraced martyrdom.

The IGP’s operations room added that the constables’ bodies were shifted to Shikarpur Civil Hospital. This information was verified by Khanpur Deputy Superintendent of Police Sagheer Ahmed Mugheeri.

Meanwhile, Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjhar sought details about the incident from the Senior Superintendents of Police in Kashmore and Shikarpur, before vowing “thorough and systematic action” against the suspects.

“The criminals who martyr police officers, as well as their gangs and facilitators, must be eliminated,” Lanjhar said in a statement issued by his office. “Ongoing targeted operations against dacoits must be intensified.”

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah expressed “grief and anger” over the incident and the martyrdom of two constables, according to a statement from his office.

The CM ordered the Larkana Deputy Inspector General of Police to immediately arrest the suspects and submit a report.

“All government machinery should be used to restore peace in the area,” the CM was quoted as saying in the statement.

Organised criminal gangs have been active in the riverine border areas of southern Sindh and central Punjab for decades, often making money through kidnap-for-ransom assaults.

The military had launched a full-scale operation against criminal gangs in Sindh in the early 1990s but they resurfaced after successive governments failed to maintain law and order in the province.

The Sindh police and Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) had decided in August to intensify ongoing joint operations against bandits in the province’s riverine areas.

On August 29, one policeman was martyred while two were injured during an anti-bandit operation carried out in the riverine areas of Sindh, according to a statement from the Rangers spokesperson.

A few days earlier on August 22, at least 11 policemen were martyred and nine injured after two police vehicles came under a rocket attack by dacoits in the Machka area, near the Punjab-Sindh border, a Punjab police spokesperson said.