Constable killed, two others hit in firing inside Lakki Marwat judicial complex
A police constable was killed and two other people were wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire outside a courtroom inside the judicial complex in Lakki Marwat on Saturday, in the latest attack on police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
A police constable was killed and two other people were wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire inside the judicial complex in Lakki Marwat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Saturday, police and hospital officials said.
The firing took place outside the courtroom of an additional sessions judge, according to reports of the incident. District Headquarters Hospital spokesperson Jalal Khan said Constable Karamatullah was killed on the spot, while Pakistan Peoples Party district information secretary Advocate Javed Iqbal and another man, Inshaullah, received bullet wounds.
The two wounded men were taken to Bannu for medical treatment, the hospital spokesperson said. Panic spread through the complex as gunshots rang out, with lawyers, litigants and other visitors rushing for safety, according to the initial reports.
Police sealed the judicial complex after the attack and suspended movement in and around the premises while an investigation was opened. The motive for the firing, and the identity of the attackers, were not immediately known, and no group had claimed responsibility in the reports published on Saturday evening.
A later report, citing local police, said Inshaullah later died of his injuries, which would take the death toll from the judicial complex attack itself to two. That account also described the wider toll across separate firing incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday as four people killed and four injured, although full details of the other incidents were not immediately available.
The attack came against a grim backdrop in the province. On Friday, three policemen were killed in separate incidents in Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Bajaur, including a Counter-Terrorism Department official shot dead in Bannu and a constable killed near a bank in Lakki Marwat's Shahbazkhel area. Police later killed two suspected target killers in an operation linked to that earlier Lakki Marwat killing.
Lakki Marwat, in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has repeatedly seen targeted attacks on police in recent days, and Saturday's shooting inside a court building will add to concern about security at public institutions as well as on the roads. Judicial complexes are ordinarily guarded premises, and an attack inside one raises questions about how the gunmen entered and how long they were able to operate before police responded.
Officials have not yet said whether the gunmen escaped on foot or by vehicle, whether any weapon was recovered, or whether any suspect has been detained in connection with Saturday's attack. Police in the district have in recent operations relied on a combination of district police, the Counter-Terrorism Department and local peace committees to pursue suspects after attacks on officers.
The provincial government has been under sustained pressure over law and order in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where an emergency and governor's rule imposed earlier this month remain the subject of intense political debate in Islamabad and Peshawar. The federal government has defended those measures as necessary to tackle rising militant violence, while the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which led the provincial government, has challenged them in court and called for dialogue.
For now, the immediate focus in Lakki Marwat is on the investigation and on the condition of the wounded advocate. Police are expected to release further details once the search of the complex and the surrounding area is complete, and the funerals and any official statements will follow in the coming hours. The incident is a reminder, for residents of the district, that the wave of attacks on police that marked Friday has not abated into the weekend.
