Peshawar: Curfew was clamped in northwest
Pakistan's Bannu district, a day after a terrorist attack on a
police complex had claimed 15 lives, as security forces
conducted a house-to-house search to nab the assailants.
Police and paramilitary forces jointly patrolled
sensitive areas in the district and conducted a search
operation around the police lines, which was targeted in
yesterday's attack.
Two explosions, one of them triggered by a suicide
bomber, ripped through the compound, killing nine policemen
and six civilians and injuring 25 others.
Announcements about the curfew were made over the
loudspeakers of mosques and people were directed not to come
out of their house after the Friday prayers.
Collective funeral prayers were offered at the Polo
Ground in Bannu for the policemen killed in the attack.
North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Ameer Haider
Khan Hoti and provincial police chief Malik Naveed flew to
Bannu to attend the funeral prayers, which were also joined by
a large number of local residents.
District police chief Iqbal Khan Marwat, who was
critically wounded in the attack, is fighting for life at a
military hospital in Rawalpindi.
Marwat, who had played a key role in anti-militancy
operations and was recently promoted as SSP, sustained head
injuries and is currently in the intensive care unit, a doctor
said.
Experts of the bomb disposal squad said over 10 kg of
explosives was used in both blasts.
Hospital officials described the condition of six of the
injured as precarious.
Chief Minister Hoti, during a brief interaction with the
media in Bannu, paid tributes to the dead policemen.
He said the war against terror would soon reach its
logical end. Hoti reiterated the government's offer to hold
talks with those who ready to lay down arms and give up
militancy.
PTI
First Published: Friday, February 12, 2010, 21:37