By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A group of militants attacked a police station in northwestern Pakistan early on Monday, killing at least 10 officers and wounding six others, officials said, in the latest episode of violence ahead of this week’s national elections.
The assailants, armed with grenades and heavy weapons, stormed the station in Daraban, a town in the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, at around 3 am, according to the police and local media reports.
The police fought back and exchanged fire with the attackers, who fled under the cover of darkness.
“After entering the building of the police station, the terrorists used hand grenades which caused more casualties to the police,” Malik Anees ul Hassan, the deputy superintendent of police in Daraban, told reporters.
The injured officers were taken to a nearby hospital, where some of them were in critical condition, he said.
Security forces cordoned off the area and launched a manhunt for the militants, while a quick response force arrived with reinforcements.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which came days before Pakistan is scheduled to hold parliamentary and provincial elections on Feb. 8.
The country of more than 230 million people has been gripped by a surge of violence in recent weeks, as extremists have targeted political rallies and offices, killing and injuring dozens of people.
Last week, a bomb blast in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, killed one person and wounded several others. Also last week, a candidate for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, was shot and killed in the tribal district of North Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan, where the Pakistani military has been battling militants for years.
Earlier, at least four people were killed and five others wounded in a blast at a rally of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the party of former prime minister Imran Khan, in Sibi, another town in Balochistan.
The perpetrators of these attacks have not been identified, but some analysts have blamed Islamic militant groups for such attacks to disrupt the elections.
The caretaker government, which took over in August after the parliament completed its 5 years term, has approved the deployment of 277,000 army soldiers to ensure the security of the voters and the candidates.
The administration has also said that it has put in place a “three-tiered system” of security to protect the voting process from militant attacks, which have increased in frequency and intensity in recent weeks.
The Election Commission of Pakistan, which oversees the polls, has said that security personnel, stationed outside the polling stations, will be responsible for guarding the ballot papers and boxes, as well as transporting them safely to and from the counting centers.
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