ANP leader killed in Bajaur attack

KHAR: A local leader of the Awami National Party was killed and three others, including his son, sustained injuries when unidentified motorcyclists opened indiscriminate fire on their vehicle they were travelling in at Haji Lawang area in Khar tehsil in the district on Monday.

Local sources said that Malik Abdul Ghani Khan, a member of the ANP central and provincial councils, along with his son Shah Khalid Khan was on his way back home in Matashah in Salarzai tehsil after attending a meeting of the party in Khar.

They said that when they reached the Haji Lawang area unknown bike riders attacked them with automatic weapons. As a result, Malik Abdul Ghani, his son and two passers-by sustained serious injuries in the targeted attack.

However, Malik Abdul Ghani succumbed to his injuries when he and the other injured were being shifted to the hospital by the Rescue 1122 ambulance. Shah Khalid, who is also the ANP president of Salarzai tehsil chapter, and the two passers-by, whose names could not be ascertained, were admitted to District Headquarters Hospital, Khar.

No individual or militant has claimed responsibility for the attack. The incidents of target-killing have increased in the erstwhile Fata, including Bajaur tribal district.

The residents complain that the government has kept a silence over the growing target-killing incidents in the tribal districts. They say that the authorities have failed to arrest the perpetrators of violence and award them exemplary punishment despite the merger of tribal areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and introduction of a judicial system in ex-Fata.