PESHAWAR — More than 200 prisoners escaped following a massive attack on one of the main prisons in northwestern Pakistan on Monday night, a senior security official said.
Authorities imposed a curfew in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, following an overnight attack on the 100-year-old central prison there, which housed more than 500 prisoners. All roads leading to neighboring restive tribal regions of North and South Waziristan were blocked off and a search operation has been launched, officials said, requesting they not be named.
“The attackers have melted away in the population,” one official acknolwledged.
More than 100 militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy arms rode in on motorbikes and vehicles and then blasted the prison walls and broke open locks on cells, freeing 243 prisoners including 30 militants, the security official said.
“They used megaphones to call names of their comrades in the lock-ups and then broke up their cells using explosives devices,” the official said.
Thirteen people were killed in the attack that began at around 11 p.m. and continued for three hours, the official said.
“There are explosives littered around the compound,” the official said.
Four policemen and five civilians were among the dead. Four prisoners who belonged to the minority Shia sect and had been charged in targeted killings were also identified and killed by militants, the official said. Another 13 people were wounded in the attack.
The attack was the second major prison raid in two years. In April last year, militants stormed a prison in neighbouring Bannu district, freeing nearly 400 prisoners...
Latest News
- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, July 30, 2013
