DPO says 7 kidnapped policemen in KP’s Bannu safely recovered

Seven policemen who were kidnapped from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district a day ago were safely recovered on Tuesday, according to the district police officer (DPO).

Unknown armed men had kidnapped the police officials from the Rocha Check Post earlier on Monday night, in the Wazir subdivision of Bannu district.

Bannu DPO Ziauddin Ahmad told Dawn.com today that all seven personnel were received by the police.

DPO Ahmad added that building pressure through local elders and police search operations helped in the safe and sound recovery of the policemen from the same area they were kidnapped from.

An official had earlier told Dawn that armed militants forcibly entered the checkpost after surrounding it and took the cops deployed there as hostage at gunpoint during the attack.

“They also snatched official rifles from the policemen,” the official had said.

Following the incident, a large police contingent had reached the area and launched a search operation for the recovery of the kidnapped officials in the remote and mountainous terrain.

The Rocha Check Post is located on the border with North Waziristan, in the limits of Otmanzai police station, in Bannu district.

The country has lately witnessed a sharp uptick in the number of attacks targeting security forces, other law enforcement agencies, and security checkpoints, particularly in Balochistan and KP.

On November 15, seven security personnel were martyred and 18 others wounded in a pre-dawn terrorist attack on a check post on a mountain in the Johan area of Kalat in Balochistan.