Islamabad: Dozens of armed militants stormed a police station in Pakistan’s South Waziristan and escaped after looting arms and ammunition, police have confirmed.
Militants armed with rocket launchers and heavy weapons forced their way into the police station in Wana, Dawn news quoted Rehman Wazir, an official who was inside at the time of the attack, as saying.
He said that around 50 militants entered the station after blowing up the front gate, Dawn reported.
Heavily outnumbered in front of militants, around 20 policemen, including the station house officer, resisted for some time but were later taken hostage, another police official said.
Videos shared on social media showed a heavy bombardment of rockets and grenades at the station in the dark of night, Dawn reported.
The attackers fled with weapons in a police van after the attack.
Local police said the militants only took away eight AK-47 rifles from the station, Dawn reported.
One police constable was injured, while an alleged militant was killed in the attack, sources said.
According to sources, the alleged militant was gunned down in an exchange of fire with Frontier Corps (FC) personnel. His body was later recovered from the Baghicha area.
The police station was briefly taken over by FC after the attack, but was later handed back to the cops by Tuesday afternoon.
Police said more force was deployed to Wana from nearby areas and currently there were 100 cops inside the station.
The attack created panic in the area and locals expressed their dismay over it.
Shakir Khan, a local elder, said “good and bad Taliban” were the government’s creation and locals want nothing to do with them.
“The public neither wants neither good nor bad Taliban. It wants the rule of law in their area,” he said.
The police stations in North Waziristan and South Waziristan — two districts bordering Afghanistan — have been consistently targeted by militants over the past few months, Dawn reported.
After a spate of attacks, police personnel vacated Raghzai and Khan Kot police stations close to the border.
The withdrawal provided the militants with an open space to roam around the area and easily access areas such as Wana, according to sources.
–IANS