Islamabad, Jan 13 (EFE).- Four members of a local peace committee were killed in a gun attack by militants in Bannu district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Tuesday, police said.
The incident happened in the Gulbadin Landai Dak area when militants hiding in wait fired indiscriminately at the peace committee members. According to the police, those killed in the attack included a father and his son.
“At 9:09 am, terrorists who were hiding opened fire on the peace committee members killing four of them, including a father and his son,” Muhammed Ishfaq, a police official at the local Hovaid police station, told EFE.
The official added that the police cordoned off the area while launching a search operation to hunt down the militants.
“A search operation is continuing but no arrests have been made so far,” Ishfaq said.
The deceased were identified as Naseeb ur Rehman, his son Bismillah Jan, Ziaullah Khan and Hamid Khan and the dead bodies have been shifted to a nearby hospital for medico-legal formalities, the police official added.
Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the incident while expressing grief over the loss of lives, a statement from his office read.
The minister “expressed heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families of the martyrs,” the statement added.
He warned that “every conspiracy to sabotage the efforts to establish peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be foiled.”
Peace committees, comprising local tribal leaders, have been established in tribal areas at the back of the government to counter the narrative and influence of the Taliban and other hardcore militant organizations.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban have their footprints mainly in those tribal regions. The group has claimed responsibility for some of the deadliest attacks against peace committee members in the past.
However, no group immediately claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack.
In April last year, at least seven people were killed and 17 others injured when a blast targeted the offices of a pro-government peace committee in the headquarters of the tribal South Waziristan district. EFE
aa/pd
