At least one policeman was martyred and two others were injured in a gun attack on a checkpost in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Charsadda district, Aaj News reported on Saturday.

The terrorists opened fire at a checkpost on Nowshera Road in Dheri Zardad, police said.

Resultantly, a police constable identified as Imran Khan lost his life while two others — Yousuf Ali and Rameez Khan — were injured, confirmed Charsadda police spokesperson Saifullah Khan.

After the attack, a heavy police contingent reached the site and began the search operation on a large scale, the police said.

The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to the statistics released by an Islamabad-based independent think tank – Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) – the year 2022 witnessed a 28 percent increase in terror attacks across the country compared to the number of terror incidents in 2021.

The report stated that terror incidents increased by 88 percent in Balochistan and 54 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during a single month of December alone in 2022.

Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed most of the terror attacks that were carried out in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In response to the increase in terrorism across the country, 16 security forces actions were reported in which 39 suspected militants were killed and 47 others were apprehended.

Pakistan witnessed a 28 percent increase in terror attacks across the country in 2022, while the highest number of 44 percent of militants’ attacks was reported in a single month of December, a report said.