NOWSHERA (The Thursday Times) — Mansehra Assistant Commissioner Adil Waseem was wounded on Saturday when gunmen opened fire on his official vehicle in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Nowshera district, police said.
Waseem was attacked in the Panah Kot area while returning from his home village of Saleh Khana in the district, and was rushed to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. Hospital spokesman Muhammad Asim said he was in a stable condition and receiving treatment.
Nowshera District Police Officer Sonia Shamroz said the area was cordoned off and a search operation launched immediately. A case has been registered and a team set up to arrest the attackers, she said.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has faced a surge in terrorist attacks on police and government officials. On Thursday night a policeman was martyred when terrorists attacked a police post in Bajaur’s Barang tehsil, one of three policemen martyred in the province in a single day. Last week four policemen, including a Counter-Terrorism Department official and a station house officer, were martyred in an exchange of fire in Karak in which two terrorists were killed.
Officials have been targeted before. In December 2025 Miranshah Assistant Commissioner Shah Wali was among four people martyred when his vehicle was attacked in Bannu, and in July that year Nawagai Assistant Commissioner Faisal Ismail and four others were martyred in a blast targeting a government vehicle in Bajaur.
Violence-linked deaths in Pakistan rose by 83 per cent in the third quarter of 2026, according to the Centre for Research and Security Studies, with Balochistan (829) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (556) accounting for 98 per cent of all fatalities.
