Amid the prevalent lawlessness, seven personnel of the Punjab Police were injured after militants equipped with heavy weaponry attacked a police checkpost in Pakistan’s Dera Ghazi Khan region.
The post is situated on the Punjab-Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa inter-provincial border where around 15 to 20 terrorists, taking advantage of the darkness at night, launched a fierce assault from multiple directions using heavy weaponry.
The militants launched a fierce attack using rocket launchers, grenades and laser light guns in their attempt to capture the Jhangi checkpost.
Recently, the Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies(PICSS) in its report noted that Pakistan witnessed a rise of 38 percent in terror attacks in April which resulted in the death of 70 individuals, including civilians and security forces personnel.
As per the report, of the total 77 attacks, 73 per cent of the total attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In addition to this, there were 323 in the first four months of the year, killing 324 people.
PICSS is a non-governmental organization for the study of conflicts and security in Pakistan which on Wednesday(1 May) published a report on armed attacks and casualties in Pakistan in April.
As per the report, 35 civilians, 31 were security personnel and 4 militants were killed in April. In addition to this, 67 people including 35 security personnel and 32 civilians were injured in these attacks.
The report noted that Pakistan’s security forces also arrested 12 militants, including those who were involved in the Besham suicide attack.
On March 26, a suicide attack was carried out on a convoy of Chinese engineers going to the Dasu Dam site in the Besham area of the Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the attack, five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani drivers were killed.
As per the Pakistan Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), the prime accused in the attack was Adil Shahbaz who belonged to the Jalalabad area of Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. The other accused were identified as Muhammad Shafiq Qureshi, Zahid Qureshi and Nazir Hussain who belong to Pakhtunkhwa, Mansehra region.
The report reveals the inefficiency of the Pak government and the Pak army in curbing the rising militancy in the country. The Pakistan army has time and again claimed that it has broken the backbone of terrorism in the country. However, many studies and reports have shown a different picture.
Pakistan witnessed a sharp rise in terror incidents, especially after the fragile ceasefire between the Pakistan government and the outlawed terror outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) broke down in the year 2022.
Pakistan alleges that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan provides a haven for TTP, whereas the Taliban terms these allegations baseless.