Six police personnel, among them the Deputy Superintendent of Police for Kulachi, were wounded on Saturday when militants opened fire on two police vehicles in the Hathala area of Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (The Express Tribune).
The vehicles under fire were the ones carrying the Kulachi DSP and the Hathala Station House Officer, Tribune reports. The sudden firing sent the DSP’s vehicle out of control and off the road, where it overturned. All three outlets covering the attack describe the injuries as coming mainly from the overturning vehicle rather than from gunfire.
Who was hurt
Regional Police Officer Ghulam Mubashir Makin named the injured as the DSP, ASI Nauman Khan, Constable Qasim, gunman Ghulam Saeed, Constable Hashim and Lady Constable Amber Altash. All were taken to the District Headquarters Hospital in Dera Ismail Khan.
Tribune’s headline puts the Hathala SHO among the wounded, but the six names in its own report do not include him. We have gone with the names.
No deaths have been reported by any outlet as of Saturday afternoon.
Dawn, which published first, put the number at four and quoted District Police Officer Ziauddin Ahmed saying “the condition of all the injured is out of danger” (Dawn). Dawn alone reports that one officer had a bullet wound while the rest were hurt when the vehicle turned over.
The count moved twice
The toll rose through the afternoon. Dawn had four at 12:29pm. Samaa had five at 12:59pm, naming DSP Kifayatullah Marwat of Kulachi, ASI Muhammad Nauman, Ghulam Hashim, Ghulam Saeed and Lady Constable Amber. Tribune had six at 1:58pm.
The lists reconcile: Tribune’s six are Samaa’s five plus Constable Qasim. We have gone with the later, itemised figure.
Where
All three outlets place the attack within the limits of the Hathala police station, near a farmhouse. Samaa locates it on the Dera–Tank Road. Dawn and Tribune call the spot the Al-Amin farmhouse — Dawn adds the nearby locality of Pota — while Samaa, citing police sources, calls it the Ali Amin Gandapur farm. Ali Amin Gandapur is the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but no outlet connects him or his family to the property, and nothing in any of the reports suggests the ownership of the land had anything to do with the attack.
The search
A heavy contingent was sent from the Ijaz Shaheed Police Lines. The area was cordoned off and an operation against the attackers launched.
It has produced nothing that police have made public. No group has claimed the attack.
Makin and Ahmed visited the hospital, handed the wounded financial assistance and told doctors to provide the best available care. “The police will continue to take all possible measures to protect the lives and property of the people,” Makin said.
The same region, the second day running
Makin is the same officer who spoke on Friday after an IED tore through Makeen Bazaar in Upper South Waziristan, killing a peace committee member and wounding eight (The Express Tribune). Dera Ismail Khan and South Waziristan sit in the same police region.
Dawn, citing the Centre for Research and Security Studies’ Annual Security Report 2025, notes that fatalities from violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa climbed from 1,620 in 2024 to 2,331 in 2025 — 711 more deaths, a rise of about 44 per cent, and by CRSS’s reckoning over 82 per cent of the net national increase. No second outlet carried that figure today.
What is not yet established is who fired. Neither the RPO nor the DPO has named a group, and nothing has been said about arrests. Whether the six hold at six is the question the evening bulletins will answer.
