Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Spokesperson Muhammad Khurasani in a message to media has claimed that TTP killed the former top cop DIG Police Crimes Branch Muhammad Naeem Kakar in Quetta on Saturday.
Earlier it was reported that unknown armed persons had shot dead A a former deputy inspector general of police in Quetta in an apparent act of target killing.
Media reports quoting DIG Quetta Abdur Razzaq Cheema said that Muhammad Naeem Kakar going home after evening prayer when attackers shot him in Junior Assistant Colony area. He was taken to Combined Military Hospital where he died.
The attackers escaped after committing the crime. The police refused to comment if it was an act of target killing. The DIG said slained DIG had served on several important position including special branch.
The incident happened less than a month after a police constable was shot dead in Nawan Killi area of Quetta.
Police officers are said to be high-risk targets in Balochistan.
Balochistan has been divided into two areas – A and B – based on how their security is organised. Police are responsible for maintaining law and order in Category A areas ─ 10 per cent of the province ─ while Category B is under the control of the Balochistan Levies. However, 90pc of violent crime occurs in Category A areas that are covered by police.
The high level of organisation in police ranks is believed to be one of the factors that incite violence against it by terrorist outfits.
Around 2001, at the onset of the deterioration in Balochistan’s security situation, Baloch separatists would target police constables in Quetta, mainly because most cops hailed from Punjab.
With the passage of time, as the ethnic composition of the police department changed, sectarian and militant outfits began carrying out attacks against cops. In recent years, most targeted attacks against policemen have been claimed by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) or the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
A number of attacks in Balochistan last year targeted senior police officials.
According to the police department, it has lost over 830 officers and constables in different incidents since 1979.
