PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Two Pakistani policemen were killed while guarding teams collecting census data in separate attacks claimed by the local Taliban, police said Tuesday.
Pakistan started a month-long digital census at the beginning of March with security officials deployed alongside more than 120,000 enumerators.
Police are increasingly on the frontline of Pakistan’s battle with the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) and are frequently targeted by militants who accuse them of extra-judicial killings.
On Monday, two teams were attacked in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in separate districts close to the border with Afghanistan.
“Gunmen attacked the police party responsible for supervising the security of the census team from two directions,” said Farooq Khan, a police official in Tank district, adding that one officer was killed and four were wounded.
Later in the evening, the Pakistani military reported that one militant was killed in an “intense exchange of fire.”
In the other attack, men on a motorbike opened fire on police, killing one and wounding three.
“The security measures were further intensified and the census process was resumed,” Lakki Marwat district administration official Tariq Ullah said.
The attacks follow a similar assault last week in the same region which left an officer dead.
The TTP, which is separate from the Afghan Taliban but has a similar Islamist ideology, claimed all three attacks.
“Our primary target is the police, regardless of whether they are escorting politicians, polio teams, or census teams,” a TTP commander said.
Pakistan is facing overlapping political, economic and environmental crises, as well as a worsening security situation, since the Afghan Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021.
In January, more than 80 officers were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest at a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The census is gathering demographic data ahead of parliamentary elections due by October.
Political parties and ethnic groups regularly criticize census statistics for undercounting, data manipulation and other irregularities.
Pakistan Taliban kill policemen guarding census team
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Pakistan Taliban kill policemen guarding census team
- Pakistan started a month-long digital census at the beginning of March with security officials deployed alongside more than 120,000 enumerators
Uganda army denies seizing opposition leader as vote result looms
- Election day was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines
- There were also reports of violence against the opposition in other parts of the country
KAMPALA: Uganda’s army denied claims on Saturday that opposition leader Bobi Wine had been abducted from his home, as counting continued in an election marred by reports of at least 10 deaths amid an Internet blackout.
President Yoweri Museveni, 81, looked set to be declared winner and extend his 40-year rule later on Saturday, with a commanding lead against Wine, a former singer turned politician.
Wine said Friday that he was under house arrest, and his party later wrote on X that he had been “forcibly taken” by an army helicopter from his compound.
The army denied that claim.
“The rumors of his so-called arrest are baseless and unfounded,” army spokesman Chris Magezi told AFP.
“They are designed to incite his supporters into acts of violence,” he added.
AFP journalists said the situation was calm outside Wine’s residence early Saturday, but they were unable to contact members of the party due to continued communications interruptions.
A nearby stall-owner, 29-year-old Prince Jerard, said he heard a drone and helicopter at the home the previous night, with a heavy security presence.
“Many people have left (the area),” he said. “We have a lot of fear.”
With more than 80 percent of votes counted on Friday, Museveni was leading on 73.7 percent to Wine’s 22.7, the Electoral Commission said.
Final results were due around 1300 GMT on Saturday.
Wine, 43, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has emerged as the main challenger to Museveni in recent years, styling himself the “ghetto president” after the slum areas where he grew up in the capital, Kampala.
He has accused the government of “massive ballot stuffing” and attacking several of his party officials under cover of the Internet blackout, which was imposed ahead of Thursday’s polls and remained in place on Saturday.
His claims could not be independently verified, but the United Nations rights office said last week that the elections were taking place in an environment marked by “widespread repression and intimidation” against the opposition.
- Reports of violence -
Analysts have long viewed the election as a formality.
Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who seized power in 1986, has total control over the state and security apparatus, and has ruthlessly crushed any challenger during his rule.
Election day was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines — used to confirm voters’ identities — malfunctioned and ballot papers were undelivered for several hours in many areas.
There were reports of violence against the opposition in other parts of the country.
Muwanga Kivumbi, member of parliament for Wine’s party in the Butambala area of central Uganda, told AFP’s Nairobi office by phone that security forces had killed 10 of his campaign agents after storming his home.
