Post date: Jan 09, 2014 6:16:49 PM
A senior policeman dubbed "Pakistan's toughest cop" is killed in a Taliban car bomb in the violent city of Karachi, in the last of a series of assassination attempts on his life.
KARACHI, PAKISTAN (JANUARY 9, 2014) (REUTERS) - A flamboyant policeman dubbed "Pakistan's toughest cop" was killed in aTaliban car bomb in the violent city of Karachi on Thursday (January 9), police said, the last of a series of assassination attempts on his life.
The Taliban, who claimed responsibility for the blast, described Police SuperintendentChaudhry Aslam's death as a "huge victory".Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain condemned the bombing.
Three other officers were killed alongside Aslam, said senior police officer Raja Umar Khattab.
At least ten policemen were injured, some of them critically.
Pistol-packing, chain smoking Aslam was notorious for taking a tough line on gangsters and Taliban in a city riddled with both.
In 2011, the Taliban rammed his house with a huge car bomb, killing eight people but leaving his family unscathed.
Aslam, who said he had already survived eight other attempts on his life, said he would not be cowed but would "teach a lesson to generations of militants".
The national press dubbed him "Pakistan's toughest cop" and he became a celebrated figure in a country where citizens often decry their government's inability to crack down on criminals and militants.
Police regularly pick up a dozen bodies a day in Karachi, a home to 18 million people and one of the world's most violent cities. Around 200 police were killed in Karachi last year.
In recent years, the Taliban have expanded their influence there, especially in areas dominated by ethnic Pashtuns fleeing the conflict in the north. But the Taliban aren't the only problem.
Last year, Aslam helped conduct a bloody and ultimately failed operation to arrest a man wanted for 63 murders in one of Karachi's most notorious slums.
Karachi police confirmed that Aslam's unit had killed three suspected Taliban that morning.
Aslam often complained about conditions of Pakistan's police responsible for finding and prosecuting militants and criminals, but chronically underfunded, undertrained and underequipped.
Their lack of training contributes to a very low conviction rate - less than 10 percent - because judges often dismiss cases where evidence has not been properly gathered.
This year's federal budget assigned about 6 billion U.S dollars to the military and 686 million U.S dollars to the police, a lopsided allocation mirrored in the disbursement of foreign aid.