Officers kill vendor over bomb suspicion

Pakistani police shot and killed a vendor they suspected of being a suicide bomber in a northwestern city yesterday, officials said.

The vendor was riding a bicycle and didn’t stop at a checkpoint outside a courthouse in Mardan city, police officer Mumtaz Khan said. The police first rammed a vehicle into the bicycle when the vendor didn’t listen to warning shouts and shot him when he tried to run away, he said.

The man died later and no explosives or weapons were found, Khan said.

“I don’t understand why the vendor would keep going (even though) we were giving him loud warnings,” said another officer, Zeb Bakhtiar, who was at the checkpoint.

High alert

Pakistani police have been on high alert after a recent string of suicide bombings that have killed more than 125 people, the latest of them inside a court building in another northwestern city.

Pakistani Taliban-linked militants and the Daesh group have claimed the brazen attacks. The Pakistani Taliban have been operating from the country’s lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border.