Attacks on police personnel guarding the census team

Two policemen deployed to protect census data collection teams in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were killed in two separate attacks on Monday. The responsibility of these incidents has been accepted by the terrorist organization Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Both these incidents took place in Tank and Lakki Marwat districts near the Afghanistan border.

In this regard, Farooq Khan, a police official posted in Tank district, told the news agency AFP that armed men attacked the policemen deployed for the scouting of a census team from two sides, as a result of which a policeman was killed. The officer was killed and four injured.

In another attack, one policeman was killed and three others were injured as a result of firing on the police by motorcycle riders in Lakki Marwat. Tariqullah, the official of the district administration of Lakki Marwat, said that after the attack, the security has been tightened there and the census process has been restarted.

Pakistan is currently conducting the country’s first digital census, in which more than 120,000 personnel have been deployed to collect details of citizens and police have been tasked with protecting them.

“Our main target is the police, whether they are deployed to protect politicians or polio and census teams,” a TTP commander told AFP in reference to Monday’s attacks. Later, the Pakistan Army in a statement also confirmed the death of a terrorist “during intense exchange of fire”.

In recent times, terrorists have targeted police personnel in Pakistan several times. He accuses the police of being involved in extra-judicial killings.

Pakistan has been facing a deteriorating security situation since the establishment of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in August 2021, an example of which was a suicide attack in a mosque in Peshawar in January, which resulted in the death of more than 80 policemen. The officials were killed.

In another attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a policeman was also killed last week and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan also claimed responsibility.