KARACHI: A 35-year-old head constable was gunned down on Friday in a targeted attack said to be carried out by militants in Orangi Town, bringing the death toll of policemen killed in such attacks in the area to five within a week, officials said.
Head constable Mohammed Aslam was on his way home on a motorbike in plain clothes after performing his night duty at the Mominabad police station when motorcyclists opened fire on him in Sector-11-E near the telephone exchange at around 8.30am.
The wounded policeman was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
“It was a targeted attack carried out by militants of banned outfits,” said Karachi West SSP Irfan Baloch.
He added that the police had carried out a targeted operation against militants in Orangi Town and in retaliation they were targeting policemen.
During the past one week, five policemen had been shot dead in the Mominabad and Pirabad police station areas, said the SSP.
This was the third killing of a policeman in the Mominabad area. On Wednesday evening, Constable Mohammed Yasir, 30, was shot dead while another constable, Mohammed Iqbal, was critically wounded in a gun attack when they were getting their police van repaired at a Hazara Colony workshop.
On June 9, constable Hasnat Hussain Shah, 35, was attacked by gunmen near his residence in Bijli Nagar.
He was posted in the Special Branch in the Mominabad police station.
The authorities were working on a strategy to end killings of policemen, said the SSP.
Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2014