Police officer and two militants killed in shootout in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Asenior police officer was killed on Tuesday morning and three others sustained injuries during an intelligence-based operation in northwest Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in which two militants were shot dead. Superintendent of Police (SP) Ijaz Khan was killed, while a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) was injured in the operation conducted in the Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The injured police officials were shifted to a hospital. A counter-terrorism department (CTD) official said two militants were killed in the exchange of fire in Mardan’s Katlang tehsil. One of them, Mohsin Kadir, was a most wanted militant, he said. According to the documents of the Department of Interior and Tribal Affairs of the province, the areas most affected by terrorism included Peshawar, Khyber, Bajaur, and Tank, while DI Khan, North Waziristan and South Waziristan are included in the terror-affected areas.

The documents revealed that 1,050 incidents of terrorism took place in KP last year, while 419 incidents of terrorism took place in the settled districts and 631 incidents in the merged districts.

In a separate incident, one Ababeel Force policeman of Gulbahar police station here was killed and another injured when they came under fire from militants on motorcycles, who managed to escape, in Phhando area in Peshawar district late Monday night.