Two militants, cop killed in Swabi encounter

SWABI: Two militants and an Elite Force cop were killed while a policeman sustained injuries in an ambush followed by an encounter at Maini village in Topi tehsil here on Sunday, a police official said.

District Police Officer (DPO) Javed Iqbal said that militants ambushed a patrolling van of the Topi Police Station.He said that a cop of the Elite Force identified as Fahad Shah was killed while Constable Munir Khan was injured in the attack.

The official said that two other policemen who were also seated in the van escaped unhurt in the attack.He said three militants escaped after staging the attack while two of them barged into a nearby stationery shop and took three persons hostage.

Javed Iqbal the held men were later freed by the militants and it was followed by an encounter.The DPO said one of the two militants blew himself up while the other one was killed by the law-enforcers. He said that the DNA test would determine the identity of the militants.

However, sources in police said that one of the militants was identified as Muhammad Aamir belonging to Marghuz village in the district. The second militant, who blew himself up, couldn’t be identified.Meanwhile, the slain policeman Fahad Shah was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard in Kalu Khan in Swabi while the injured Munir was taken to a hospital in Peshawar.