KOHAT, Jan 21: Four policemen were shot dead by a fifth colleague at police lines here on Tuesday night. Constable Faheem opened fire indiscriminately with his official AK-47 assault rifle on a group of constables soon after he took charge of his duty at the police lines gate at around 8:30pm on Tuesday evening.

Three policemen died instantly. They were identified as Mir Akbar, Saifullah and Sher Akbar. Later, he entered the police control room and shot dead the policeman on duty identified as Iftikhar Hussain Shah. He was overpowered by other constables after the rifle magazine became empty.

The bodies were shifted to the KDA hospital for postmortem at 9.45pm. A two-member team headed by DIG Kohat region Sultan Hanif Orakzai and SP (Investigations) Faiz Mohammad Khattak has started an enquiry into the firing. The enquiry was ordered by NWFP IGP Riffat Pasha.

According to the preliminary investigation, the constable was said to be mentally deranged. He was reinstated in service recently and was told to take charge as guard at the police lines on Tuesday night. He killed his colleagues after offering prayers at the police lines mosque.

It has been learnt that after killing the four policemen, he ran towards the main Kohat-Hangu road, but returned and again started firing at the quarter guard post where nobody was present at the time.