The police van was patrolling 15th street in the I-10 sector area of Islamabad when the attack took place.
Unidentified assailants appeared on two motorcycles and opened fire at the police van. One sub-inspector, Riaz, was killed as a result while another policeman was injured.
Eyewitnesses said that a female passerby was also injured in the attack, but this was not confirmed by authorities.
Yesterday (Thursday), Islamabad police foiled two bids to smuggle weapons including machine guns and sniper rifles into the capital and apprehended four suspects.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that a major terror plot in Islamabad’s Red Zone district had been foiled. The district is home to Western embassies, parliament, the presidency and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) headquarters.
“As a result of strict security measures in the federal capital, some major terrorist plots have been foiled,” he told reporters.
“The terrorists wanted to target certain specific places in the Red Zone (the heavily fortified government district) and the headquarters of an elite agency,” Malik said
