Dawn
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08:11 Sep 23, 2025
In September last year, militants attacked a police station in Swat district, martyring one policeman and injuring two others. The attack itself wasn’t out of the ordinary — after all, Swat is no stranger to terrorist attacks. What was different about this attack was the modus operandi adopted by the militants. Over the course of the next several days, investigators pieced together clues on the attack, which they later confirmed was carried out using an improvised explosive device (IED). “They had used an improvised explosive device, made of a power bank, which is mostly used for charging mobile phones,” District Police Officer Dr Zahidullah later told Dawn. The investigators, said Dr Zahidullah, pored over hours of CCTV footage to identify one of the militants, who in turn gave up the names of two other suspects. But the biggest breakthrough came during the course of the investigation when the militants admitted that they never used common means of communication to contact each other. Rather, they would comm...