The FBR sources confirmed to have received several security alerts from different security agencies, advising to beef up security at the office. Reacting on the said alerts, they claimed to have written letters to the Sindh Rangers and Sindh Police, seeking deployment of security personnel at tax office to avoid any untoward incident. However, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) expressed inability to provide security at tax office, following the shortage of resources.
They said that tax office was unable to ensure complete security to its officials as no recruitment was made for the last over a decade. Presently, all tax offices were being guarded by untrained FBR employees and termed it as major reason for terrorists to consider tax offices as soft target. The police said that the fatal incident occurred when two unidentified armed riders sprayed bullets at the main entrance of FBR's regional office, leaving two FBR officials, deputed on a security, in a pool of blood. The police said that both officials received fatal injuries and took last gasp on the way to hospital.
Identities of the deceased were ascertained as Faqeera,50, and Tanzeel-ul-Huda,20. On the other hand, the police sources said the incident might be a 'targeted killing' case as the two guards had been wearing clothes resembling the police uniform, raising suspicions that the attackers may have mistaken the two men for being police officials.
It may be relevant to mention here that the city police have been soft target of terrorists as some eight policemen have been shot dead in different parts of the metropolis during the last one month or more. A newly emerged terrorist group Ansar-ul-Sharia Pakistan has claimed responsibility of most of the assaults on the law enforcers in metropolis during the said period. However, none of such terrorists groups claimed responsibility of the fresh attack on FBR security personnel till filing of this report.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017