Death toll from bandit attack on police in Pakistan rises to 12

The death toll from Pakistan’s deadliest bandit attack on police rose to 12 after one of the wounded officers died at a hospital in the eastern province of Punjab as police pursued the bandits believed to be behind the attack, officials said Friday.

Thursday’s attack with guns and rocket-propelled grenades also wounded eight officers. It took place in the Kacha area in Rahim Yar Khan district, which is known for hideouts along the Indus River where hundreds of heavily armed bandits evade police.

Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said police had killed a bandit leader believed to have been behind the attack named Bashir Shar, and wounded five others, as they pursued the gang. In a statement, Anwar said the operation against the robbers is still ongoing, and it will continue until the last bandit is eliminated in the province.

Senior police and government officials will attend the funerals of slain officers later Friday.

Bandits often rob people traveling on highways in Punjab and elsewhere in the country. Some areas in Punjab are so dangerous that people avoid traveling after sunset to avoid getting robbed, though police have cleared most of the so-called “no-go areas.”

Abdullah Khan, a senior defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said the bandits were armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and pistols.

“These weapons were smuggled to Pakistan from Afghanistan in recent years, and are available to the robbers too,” he told The Associated Press.

According to police, the bandits ambushed police when one of the vehicles carrying officers broke down while passing through flooded farm fields. Pakistan has been lashed by monsoon rains since July.

The attack was denounced by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who released statements to express sorrow and described the slain officers as martyrs.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence, mostly blamed on militants, in recent years but the death of so many police officers in one attack in unprecedented.

Police said the robbers took advantage of the darkness to attack police. In a statement, they said that the “morale of the police is high, and such cowardly actions by robbers cannot lower the morale of the police.”