BAJAUR/LAKKI MARWAT: A station house officer and other police personnel narrowly escaped a bomb attack on their official vehicle in Tang Khata area of Khar tehsil in Bajaur tribal district here on Thursday.

Police and residents said the incident occurred at around 4pm when the bomb, planted along the Tang Khata Bridge, went off near the official vehicle of Khar SHO Rashid Ahmad, who, along with other police personnel, passed by.

DPO Waqas Rafique told reporters that the policemen remained unhurt in the remote-controlled bomb explosion, but the vehicle was badly damaged.

He said a team of policemen immediately rushed to the area and launched a search for the culprits.

The DPO said an investigation into the incident was under way.

Cop injured by gunmen in Karak

POLICEMAN INJURED:A police official was injured when gunmen attacked a police party in Jehangiri Banda of Karak district on Thursday.

A police official said the police had set up a temporary checking point in the area to check suspected individuals and motorists.

He said miscreants travelling in a motorcar opened fire on the cops near the checkpoint.

“ASI Hakim Khan received a minor injury on his leg,” he said, adding that the policeman was shifted to a local hospital.

He said that police had launched a search for the attackers who escaped after the attack.

Meanwhile, the police defused an homemade bomb near the Wanda Haji Gul area of Lakki Marwat in the limits of the city police station on Thursday.

A police official said that the bomb was placed in the road to target police and security forces.

He said that residents spotted some wires and informed police who immediately showed up and cordoned off the area.

“The police stopped traffic movement on the road for some time and called out experts of the bomb disposal squad,” he said.

The official said the BDS experts recovered the bomb and defused it.

He said that the miscreants had used a plastic drum and explosive wires to make a 43kg bomb to target law-enforcement personnel but the plan was foiled.

The police beefed up security and asked personnel to monitor the movement of suspected people.

Meanwhile, miscreants attacked Kaghazai police post on Kohat-Hangu Highway with automatic weapons on Wednesday night. However, the attack was repulsed.

Sources told Dawn that the post was attacked at around 1:15am by more than a dozen heavily armed men who had come from the side of the Hangu district on foot.

They said huge contingents of security forces and police rushed to the site, after which a heavy exchange of fire continued for a long time.

RPO Abbas Majeed Marwat, DPO Dr Zahidullah Khan and the army personnel reached the scene and repulsed the attack with full force, forcing terrorists to flee.

The security forces launched a search and clearance operation to arrest the terrorists, but nobody was held. No human loss was reported in the incident.

The attack came after the killing of a commander of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Saeed, in a joint operation by the counter-terrorism department, police and security forces in Hangu district the other day.

The commander had links with the terrorists based in Afghanistan and was among the most wanted men in Pakistan, according to officials.

On Tuesday, an official of the Hangu district’s Security Branch was martyred in a Hangu terrorist attack by two motorcyclists.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2025