KOHAT: Four policemen, who were martyred in an ambush on their official vehicle in Kohat on Saturday night, were laid to rest in their ancestral graveyards with full honours on Sunday.

A joint funeral prayer was held at the Police Lines in Kohat which was attended by Kohat Commissioner Musarrat Hussain, MNA Sheharyar Afridi, MPA Ziaullah Bangash, Kohat region DIG Awal Khan, DPO Javed Iqbal, SP Operations Jameel Akhtar, ASP under training Awais Shafique, DSPs Abdur Rasheed, Zahir Shah and Raza Mohammad, former district nazim and JUI-F leader Gohar Saifullah Bangash and elders of the area.

The bodies were later sent to the victims’ villages for burial.

Khanullah, the station house officer of Lachi police station, was buried in the Azam Kalay area of Karak district, Additional SHO Tahir Mehmood in Malangabad, Head Constable Tanveer Ali in the Khadizai area in Kohat district and Constable Abid Khattak in Warana village of Karak district.

Meanwhile, DPO Iqbal disputed a claim by the Jamaatul Ahrar militant group that it had carried out the attack.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, he said it was being reported by the media that a faction of Jamaatul Ahrar had claimed carrying out the attack on Sunday, adding the claim was wrong because the incident occurred on Saturday night.

He said the area was peaceful and no terrorist group existed there. Militant groups which once took control of the area were driven out in 2009, he added.

The DPO said the case was complicated and it was too early to draw a conclusion about it. He said two or three criminal groups were active in the area, but their involvement in high-profile cases could not be established.

The Counter-Terrorism Department of the police registered a case against unidentified assailants under various sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2017