Police vow thorough investigation of Peshawar carnage

As the police piece together the evidence about the worst terror attack to have hit the country, Inspector General (IG) of Police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Nasir Durrani, vowed Thursday that all inadequacies in the system would be removed.

Addressing the media, Durrani said that the crime scene had innumerable items lying about and specialised army teams were present at the scene to collect evidence which will be analysed scientifically.

He said that the team constituted to investigate the Peshawar school attack was currently working on the available evidence, adding that it had a forensic lab and crime scene investigation officers who were helping to obtain evidence from the scene and analyse it.

He claimed that leads coming from initial investigations into the Peshawar school massacre extend beyond the country's border.

In Tuesday's Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that left nearly 150 people, mostly students, dead, militants had been in direct communication with their handler in Afghanistan, Umar Naray, alias Umar Khalifa Adinzai -- a well known commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's (TTP) Tariq Geedar group.

"He was directing the suicide bombers and the attack group," Dawn online quoted a security official as saying.

"At present, the issue that everyone needs to understand is that we are in a state of war; we are fighting militancy, and all stakeholders and organisations must come together to fight," Durrani said at Thursday's media conference.

"Not only organisations but masses must unite to fight as well, as this is everybody's war," the inspector general said.

Durrani said awareness must be created through the media as the enemy had plunged to the lowest depths. He added that police would also hunt down the companions of militants behind the massacre.

"This is a question of our lives and honour, and we all must unite to protect it. The time for blaming others has passed. In the absence of passion and vigilance, we cannot fight against terrorism," he added.

Responding to a question whether the attack occurred due to a security lapse on the part of police personnel or armed forces, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police chief said everyone was responsible for the loss and people must unite and forget whose failure it was.

"Armed forces are also fighting gallantly in Khyber," Durrani said.

Speaking about the role of police, he said approximately four to five policemen are martyred every week.