JAMMU: At least 14 people, including eight policemen, were killed and 22 others injured in a suicide attack outside the gate of Kabal police station in Swat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan on August 2, the police has said. According to the Swat District Police Officer (DPO) Umar Khan, the suicide bomber detonated explosives after police personnel attempted to stop and search him at the entrance of the police station.
“According to initial information, 14 people, including eight policemen, have been killed, and 22 others are injured,” the DPO said, adding that the police remained on high alert. “Security forces have cordoned off the area, and an investigation is underway to collect further evidence,’’ he added.
The explosion occurred near the gate of Kabal Police Station while hundreds of people were participating in a public demonstration at the nearby Kabal Chowk, against the recent wave of violence in the Swat Valley, according to a Dawn report.
Several suicide attacks on security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The powerful blast caused multiple casualties, prompting an immediate emergency response by police, rescue teams and local authorities. The injured were shifted to nearby Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital for treatment, while security personnel sealed off the area and launched a search operation.
The toll is likely to rise further as the condition of some of the injured was critical.
The protest had drawn a large crowd from across the district and the attack occurred as the final speaker was addressing the crowd, triggering panic among participants. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
However, armed men of Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP), called Fitna Al Khwarij (FAK) by the Federal government of Pakistan, have carried out most of the attacks in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Pakistan has often alleged that Afghanistan soil was being used to launch these attacks.
Addressing the gathering before the blast, the speakers condemned the resurgence of violence in Swat and demanded that the government ensure lasting peace. They said their movement had a single agenda: the restoration of peace and the elimination of violence from the region.
The speakers stressed that maintaining law and order and eradicating violence were the state’s responsibility, warning that continued insecurity could trigger widespread public unrest, citing recent protest movements in other countries as examples of growing public frustration.
Authorities have failed to check wanton violence
The speakers also criticised the authorities for what they described as action against peaceful citizens while armed TTP men continued to operate in the mountainous areas of Swat. They alleged that these men had openly circulated videos on social media and questioned why stronger action had not been taken against them.
“Our children deserve education, and our families deserve to live in peace,” one speaker told the gathering. “We have witnessed years of bloodshed. Our mothers, sisters, and daughters have suffered immensely, and we do not want another generation of widows and orphans.”
Earlier in the day, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast near the Peshawar-Islamabad motorway toll plaza injured two policemen in the provincial capital Peshawar. On July 30, an attack on a police check post in Hangu had led to death of nine policemen.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has seen an uptick in terrorist activity. According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies’s monthly security assessment, KP, excluding the merged districts, recorded 154 such violence related deaths in July, compared with 75 in June, representing an increase of 105 per cent.
