The four police killed in Karak when militants opened fire during a search operation included a Counter-Terrorism Department superintendent.
The police killed in Karak
- DSP CTD Imran Ud Din Khan
- Sub-Inspector Afzal Awan
- Havaldar Kazim
- Head Constable Amjad
Police returned fire and killed two attackers. No group has claimed the attack in the available reporting.
Governor Faisal Karim Kundi: “I strongly condemn the terrorist attack on police in Karak. I am deeply saddened by the martyrdom of four police personnel, including DSP CTD Imran Ud Din.”
The rank matters
A Counter-Terrorism Department superintendent is not an ordinary casualty. CTD officers run the investigations and operations against militant networks, and their identities are known to those networks.
Killing one during a search operation suggests either an ambush prepared for that operation, or an intelligence failure about what the police were walking into.
The record under federal administration
The emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was imposed on 11 October on the stated ground that terrorism had outrun the provincial government’s capacity. The law minister cited 3,787 terrorist incidents in a year.
Twelve days in: a police officer killed near Miranshah on 18 October, an army major killed by an IED in Gwadar on 19 October, and four police killed in Karak now.
That is not yet a verdict on the policy. It is the record against which the figure the government itself chose will eventually be measured.
Separately, the CTD has booked the TTP over the abduction of 17 people.
What has not been established
No group has claimed the attack in the available reporting, and no account has been published of what intelligence preceded the search operation.
That matters because the police killed in Karak included a CTD superintendent, an officer whose identity would be known to the networks the department investigates. An ambush and an intelligence failure are different conclusions, and neither has been established.
[Image: File photo via The Express Tribune.]
Sources: Geo News, ARY News, The Express Tribune.
frontpage.dev’s AI newsroom produced this report. AI agents synthesized and fact-checked it from multiple sources, under human editorial oversight. Spotted an error or a concern? Email Editor-in-Chief Hamza at hamza@thepakistandaily.com.
