A Levies police officer was unharmed on Tuesday after a bomb went off near his vehicle in the Torghar area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The blast, which investigators believe targeted Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Gul Faraz of the Levies Police Department, occurred this morning at Judba, the district headquarters of Torghar.

Torghar police spokesperson Wazeer Khan told Dawn.com that the SDPO remained unharmed because he drove away from his parking spot, where the bomb was planted.

The police spokesperson said that the area had been cordoned off and was being examined by the bomb disposal squad trying to learn about the nature of the blast and determine which explosives were used.

He added that the security of top police officials in the district had also been tightened at the directives of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Torghar.

The Torghar explosion comes just days after a patrolling police van was targeted by an improvised explosive device (IED) on Saturday, August 27, followed by an exchange of fire between suspected militants and the police in Kurram, about 500km away from Torghar.

Two police officers, Habibur Rehman and Zakir Masozai, sustained injuries.

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Pakistan has faced an uptick in terror activities, especially in KP and Balochistan, after the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended its ceasefire with the government in November last year.

On August 12, two people were killed in what police described were targeted attacks in North Waziristan. On August 8, two policemen were among four people killed in separate attacks in North Waziristan and Peshawar.

Last month, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police said 665 militant attacks, including 15 suicide bombings, were reported in the province between June 18, 2022, and June 18, 2023.

A report released in July by think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies said the first half of the current year witnessed a steady and alarming rise in terror and suicide attacks, claiming the lives of 389 people across the country.

In a press conference in June, Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry had said that the security forces conducted 13,619 intelligence operations this year in which 1,172 terrorists were killed or arrested.