PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen abducted a district and sessions court judge in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Saturday as he was traveling from his hometown of Tank to the southern Dera Ismail Khan district, according to a police official.

The incident has alarmed the legal community and coincides with a resurgence of militant violence in KP and Balochistan provinces, following the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)’s termination of a fragile truce with the government in November 2022.

“Shakirullah Marwat, the district and sessions judge in South Waziristan, was kidnapped near Bagwal, a dusty town between Tank and Dera Ismail Khan,” said Muhammad Ibrahim, a police spokesman. “The kidnappers released Marwat’s driver but took the judge with them.”

Ibrahim added that a heavy police contingent was dispatched to the area immediately after the incident to collect evidence and search for the armed men.

Earlier this month, an attack in Dera Ismail Khan resulted in the death of six people, including five customs department officials, with another person wounded when gunmen targeted their vehicle.

Shah Fahad Ansari, a high court advocate and the divisional president for the People Lawyers’ Forum, condemned the abduction, saying that courts across the region should be locked down in protest to draw attention to the deteriorating law and order situation.

“The provincial government has completely failed to maintain security in the area,” Ansari added. “You can imagine the sense of insecurity among people at a time when the state cannot even protect its judges.”

Reacting to the development, KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur instructed the police to ensure the safe recovery of the judge.

“Emergency measures must be taken to recover the judge, and all available resources should be utilized for this purpose,” he said in a statement.

Gandapur maintained the people who were behind the incident would not be able to escape the law.

The recent weeks have also seen attacks on police officials in KP.

Earlier this month, a policeman was shot dead in North Waziristan. In related incidents, an official from the provincial counterterrorism department and a senior cleric affiliated with the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam religious party were fatally shot in target killings in the area.

While no group has claimed responsibility for these attacks, suspicion has fallen on the TTP, whose leadership is said to be based in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Afghan deputy interior minister, Mohammad Nabi Omari, urged Pakistan and the banned militant network to resume negotiations earlier this month, but Pakistani authorities rejected this idea, calling on the administration in Kabul to act against militants operating from its soil.