ISLAMABAD: Police in Pakistan’s Punjab province have arrested 89 suspected militants in hundreds of intelligence-based operations across the province over the past three months, they said on Monday, amid a surge in militancy in the South Asian country.
Pakistan is currently battling an insurgency led by religiously motivated groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, which borders Punjab. The attacks in KP this year forced Punjab authorities to heighten security in the region.
The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police conducted 940 raids and arrested 28 militants from Lahore and Rawalpindi, seven each from Faisalabad and Bahawalpur, 12 from Jhang and Sargodha, five from Sahiwal, four from Gujranwala and six from Gujrat and Bahawalnagar districts.
“Among the arrested militants were 55 linked to Fitna Al-Khawarij [Pakistani Taliban], five to Daesh, two to Al-Qaeda, two to Hizb ul-Tahrir and two to Jiye Sindh,” the Punjab CTD said in a statement.
“In the last three months, 13,521 combing operations were carried out during which 1,131 suspects were arrested.”
