Two Pakistani police officers protecting teams conducting the national census have been killed in separate attacks alleged by local Taliban, police said on Tuesday.
Pakistan conducted a digital census of its population in early March and deployed members of the security forces alongside more than 120,000 counters to ensure their protection.
In their war against the Pakistani military and state, the Pakistani Taliban Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are increasingly attacking the police and accusing all security forces of extrajudicially killing their fighters.
On Monday, two census teams were attacked in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (northwest) in two districts near the border with Afghanistan.
“Armed men attacked police officers monitoring the security of a census team,” said Farooq Khan, a police officer in Tank district.
One police officer was killed and four injured, he said.
Another attack by armed men on motorcycles in Lakki Marwat district also left one dead and three injured among police officers escorting census workers.
“Security measures have been further tightened and the census process has resumed,” Tariq Ullah, an administrative official in the district, told AFP.
Another similar attack last week in the same region also claimed the life of a police officer.
The TTP, a group separate from the Afghan Taliban but driven by the same Islamist ideology, claimed responsibility for the three attacks.
“Our primary target is the police, whether they’re escorting politicians, teams (of polio vaccine doctors or census teams),” a TTP commander told AFP.
For several months, especially since the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan has been confronted with a deterioration in the security situation, particularly in the border regions of Afghanistan.
On January 30, 83 police officers and one civilian were killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in Peshawar (north-west) police headquarters.
The census of Pakistan’s population precedes parliamentary elections, which are due to be held by October.
This process is regularly criticized by political parties or ethnic groups, who denounce underestimation of their representation, data manipulation and various irregularities.