An assistant head of the police bomb disposal squad in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was killed on Saturday when an improvised explosive device detonated as he tried to defuse it, according to Xinhua. The blast took place in the Sararogha area of Upper South Waziristan district, police said.
District police officer Ashfaq Khan told local media that the officer was critically wounded in the explosion and died from his injuries afterward. Xinhua reports that the device that killed him was the second one he encountered at the site.
Why it matters
The death puts a focus on the daily risk carried by bomb disposal personnel in Pakistan's northwestern districts, where security forces and police routinely respond to reports of planted explosives. These officers are sent toward devices that others have been warned to avoid, and the work leaves little margin for error.
The incident also highlights that militant-linked violence in the region has not faded. South Waziristan, part of the former tribal belt along the Afghan border, was the scene of a large military operation against armed groups more than a decade ago, yet roadside and planted bombs remain a recurring hazard for police and security personnel there.
According to Xinhua, the officer had already completed one successful task at the scene before the second device went off. That detail — a defused bomb followed by a fatal one — reflects a familiar pattern in which explosives are placed in clusters or set as traps for the responders who arrive first.
What police have said about the sequence
The account from police, as carried by Xinhua, describes two devices in the same area. The officer first rendered safe an IED that had been planted there, then moved on to a second explosive and was attempting to neutralize it when it detonated.
District police officer Ashfaq Khan, speaking to local media, confirmed that the officer's injuries were severe and that he did not survive them. No further details on the type of device, the exact timing, or whether anyone else was hurt were included in the reporting.
Pakistani outlets, including Dawn, The News Pakistan and The Express Tribune, also covered the death, describing the officer as having been killed while defusing an IED in South Waziristan. Their reports used the term "martyred," a phrasing commonly applied in Pakistani media to security and police personnel killed on duty.
A persistent threat in the northwest
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the districts that were once part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas have seen years of attacks involving improvised explosives. Police bomb disposal units are typically the first specialists called when a suspicious object is found near a road, a checkpoint, or a public building.
The work is technical and close-range. Officers often approach a device on foot, sometimes in protective gear that offers limited protection, and attempt to disarm it manually or with remote tools. When a device is deliberately configured to explode during handling, even experienced personnel can be caught.
Saturday's death is a reminder that the burden of this threat falls not only on military formations but on civilian police forces tasked with keeping roads and towns clear. The loss of a squad assistant head also removes an experienced specialist from a unit whose skills take time to build.
The reporting does not identify any group as responsible for planting the devices, and no claim of responsibility was cited by Xinhua or the Pakistani outlets that covered the incident.
What to watch
Whether authorities release further details — including the officer's identity, the outcome of any clearance operation in the Sararogha area, and any investigation into who placed the devices — will shape how the incident is understood in the coming days.
