LAHORE: A day after a deadly suicide bombing in Peshawar claimed over 100 lives, a police station in Mianwali came under a gun attack by a group of heavily armed militants belonging to banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Tuesday night.
However, police claimed late at night the attack had been repulsed. The attack is significant in that terrorists — who had so far targeted police stations and check posts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and areas bordering Afghanistan — have set their sights on a police station in Punjab for the first time since the resurgence of terrorism in the country.
Punjab Inspector General of Police Dr Usman Anwar confirmed to Dawn in the early hours of Wednesday that armed attackers belonging to the banned militant organisation, TTP, claimed the attack on the police station.
He said police teams from three regions — Mianwali, Dera Ghazi Khan and Sargodha — besides Lahore police and Punjab CTD had reached Mianwali for a ‘grand operation’ against the TTP.
According to social media reports, the attack started at around 9pm as militants unleashed heavy fire at Makkarwal police station using automatic weapons. This resulted in a heavy exchange of fire as police retaliated leading to a gun battle that lasted two hours.
