- Clearance operation completed at KPO.
- Investigations are underway after the attack on the five-story building.
- Police say militants had lethal weapons.
KARACHI: Flaws have been identified in security arrangements at the Karachi Police Office (KPO) — a centrally located building on the city’s main artery — which came under a terrorist attack on Friday.
All three militants were killed and four people, including two policemen and a Sindh Rangers sub-inspector, embraced martyrdom in the nerve-racking operation that lasted for more than four hours.
Eighteen other people, including police and Rangers personnel, were also injured in the terror attack, which occurred after a deadly suicide attack at a Peshawar Civil Lines mosque that left 84 dead.
According to the sources, there is no security gate to enter Police Lines Saddar where families of policemen are residing.
Sources said that terrorists allegedly entered KPO by climbing the rear wall and the three security checkposts at the city police chief’s office were not manned at the time of attack.
“Barbed wire, on the rear wall of the KPO, was also cut,” they said, adding there are no CCTV cameras installed to monitor the building from the Shahrae Faisal side.
Police investigators have collected the evidence. The car in which the terrorists came is present at the Saddar police station.
The law enforcement agencies identified three terrorists involved in the KPO attack. Two of the terrorists belonged to North Waziristan while one of them belonged to Lakki Marwat.
KPO cleared after militant attack
In an hours-long operation, police commandos and paramilitary soldiers cleared the Karachi Police Office of terrorists, who had stormed the building on Friday evening.
DIG East Muqadas Haider, DIG South Ifran Baloch, DIG Rapid Response Force (RRF) Nasir Aftab, Special Security Unit (SSU) and Sindh Rangers participated in the tense operation.
The Pakistan Army also assisted the law enforcers.
Sindh Inspector General of Police, Ghulam Nabi Memon, told The News that three terrorists had been killed in the operation. He claimed no advanced terror threat information to the Karachi Police Office.
Following the attack, the IGP ordered extraordinary security measures at the police headquarters across Sindh. He also ordered expanding the intelligence network.
Officials said the terrorists reached the premises of the KPO situated near the FTC Building on Sharea Faisal in a white Corolla car around 7pm.
They approached the KPO from the Saddar Police Station. When police officials on duty asked the occupants to identify themselves, they opened fire and lobbed a grenade at the main gate of the KPO, forcing the policemen to take cover and retaliate.
Soon afterwards, commandos sprang into action to counter the terrorists, who had now entrenched themselves in the five-storeyed police installation.
