ISLAMABAD: At least two cops were killed and another sustained injuries this week after “terrorists” opened fire on a police vehicle in northwestern Pakistan, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported on Tuesday.
The incident took place on Monday at the Machni Gate area in Pakistan’s northwestern Peshawar city. Constables Ajmal Khan and Siraj Khan were killed in the attack while an assistant sub-inspector sustained wounds, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) police confirmed in a post on social media platform X.
“According to SSP Operations Peshawar, Kashif Aftab Abbasi, the policemen were on routine patrolling when the terrorists ambushed and attacked the police mobile,” APP reported. Abbasi said police started a search operation in the area shortly after the attack to trace the “terrorists.”
Separately, KP police wrote on X that the two constables were laid to rest at Peshawar’s Police Lines area. “Police officers including relatives of the martyred attended the funeral prayers in large numbers,” KP police said.
Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in militant violence in its western KP and Balochistan provinces that share their border with the neighboring state of Afghanistan.
Pakistan Army’s media wing said on Saturday security forces had killed 10 militants and injured three others in two separate operations in the country’s North Waziristan district. A day later, two were killed in Peshawar when a blast from an explosive-laden motorcycle ripped through the city’s Nasir Bagh road on Sunday morning.
The surge in militant activities, including deadly suicide bombings, followed after Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a conglomerate of armed factions, called off a fragile ceasefire with the government in November 2022. Pakistani security forces have carried out several intelligence-based operations in recent months to deal with militants hiding in the remote areas of the two provinces.
Pakistan alleges the TTP and other militant groups use Afghan soil to launch attacks against it. Kabul denies the allegations and has repeatedly assured Islamabad it would not allow its soil to be used for attacks against any country, including Pakistan.
