A police constable was killed and three of his colleagues were abducted when gunmen attacked a police post in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa late on Sunday night, in the latest strike against security personnel in the province.
The attackers stormed the Shalmas Pir Ziarat police post, which stands on Shah Almas Pir mountain, and opened fire on the men stationed there. Hangu District Police Officer Salahuddin Kundi said the gunmen then took three policemen with them as they withdrew towards Khanano Kot, in the Samana mountain range.
The constable killed in the exchange of fire was identified as Feroz Ali. His funeral prayers were offered with full state honours at the Police Lines in Hangu on Monday morning, attended by DPO Kundi and other police and security officers, who laid floral wreaths on his coffin and paid tribute to his sacrifice. His body was then taken to his native village of Ibrahimzai.
A heavy contingent of police and security forces reached the scene after the attack, retook control of the post and launched a pursuit operation against the attackers. A search operation was under way on Monday to trace the three abducted policemen and secure their release.
No group had claimed responsibility for the attack by Monday afternoon. The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has carried out repeated attacks on police and security forces in the province since its ceasefire agreement with the federal government ended in November 2022, and officials routinely link such strikes to the group, although no claim had been made in this case.
The Hangu attack follows a string of deadly assaults on police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent weeks. On 8 October, Station House Officer Daud Khan and his gunman Farhad were shot dead near the Karak-Kohat boundary. On 28 September, three traffic police personnel were killed when gunmen attacked their vehicle in Tank district, and on 25 September a Counter-Terrorism Department constable, Muhammad Afaq, was killed and three colleagues wounded during an intelligence-based operation in Peshawar's Garhi Sherdad area.
One of the deadliest recent attacks came on 18 September, when a bomb blast followed by an assault on the Kohat Police Lines killed 15 police personnel among 23 people. Eight attackers were killed during the clearance operation that followed.
The continuing violence has put Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's police under severe strain, and the provincial government has been weighing a major security overhaul, including so-called faceless anti-terrorism courts to protect witnesses, prosecutors and judges, and a reported Rs70 billion package of security measures for the militant-hit province.
For the families of the abducted policemen, the hours after the attack brought an anxious wait, with no word yet on their condition or whereabouts. Police officials said every effort was being made to recover them safely, but gave no further details of the operation while it was under way.
The coming days are likely to show whether the attack prompts a wider security response in Hangu and the surrounding districts, and whether investigators can establish who planned and carried out the raid on the mountain post. For now, the post is back in police hands, the search for the three missing men continues, and another police family in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is mourning a son lost on duty.
