A woman was killed and two others were reportedly injured when unknown armed men fired at a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) airplane that was about to land at the Bacha Khan International Airport late on Tuesday.
According to details, PIA flight PK 756 coming from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was about to land at the Peshawar airport when the incident took place at around 11pm. At the time of the incident around 178 passengers and 12 crew members were on board the PIA flight and the aircraft was flying at an altitude of 1,500 metres.
Confirming the incident, airport officials said one passenger was killed while flight stewards identified as Ijaz Afridi and Wajid were injured in the incident. The injured have been shifted to the Combined Military Hospital. They said that 12 bullets had pierced through the aircraft’s body but the pilot, Captain Tariq Chaudhry managed to land the aircraft safely. They said that flight operations had been suspended at the airport following the incident.
Police sources said that the aircraft was targeted from the University Road area in Tehkaal and police and security forces had cordoned off the airport premises and launched a search operation in the area to trace the perpetrators.
This is the third such incident at the Bacha Khan Airport.
On April 29, rockets were fired on Bacha Khan International Airport (BKIA) that hit an army barrack on Khyber Road. On February 26, two rockets landed inside Peshawar airport however no damage was reported.
The suspected attack follows a major Taliban assault on Karachi airport earlier this month that killed at least 32 people, including all 10 Uzbek terrorists affiliated with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The security was put on a high alert around the Bacha Khan Airport area amidst the military’s ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb against terrorists in North Waziristan Agency, one of the country’s seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies next to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of which Peshawar is the capital.
